LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Monday 9th June 2008

Sensible Shoes - my secret vice

Given that I don't have to go into work tomorrow (tho having to make a torturous journey from Bury St Edmunds to York tomorrow evening)...I am uncharacteristically not worrying about what time I will surface tomorrow morning! So, on the advice of one of my Tory boys I am reviewing my posts and adding 'labels'.....and came across this post, started in April. Well, started is perhaps slightly egging the pudding. All I had was a title. Can I remember what my point was........er............ Given the date, it probably had something to do with my purchase of some 'sensible' canvassing shoes. ...

Do You Want to Be a Writer?

This evening I addressed the Croydon Writers' Circle in the magnificent clocktower building in the town centre, talking on the subject 'On the Road: Making a Living as a Writer'. The club has been in existence for over 60 years, which is testimony to the endurance of literary aspirations. In recent years, I have often seen newspaper [...]

Twitter / towerbridge

Tower Bridge now has its own twitter page, recording when it opens and closes: Twitter / towerbridge. It reminded me of the doors that opened/closed on Zaphod B/b's spaceship in Hitch Hiker's Guide.... (Mine is http://twitter.com/sj_robinson !)

Video petitioning

I've been well and truly cheered by an e-mail from Becki Fox, the Member of Youth Parliament for Stockton. A lovely message of encouragement, and thanking me for signing the video petition. I am reproducing what she writes below as I couldn't put it better myself . Please do have a look at the video petition and if you agree with the 'FaresFair' campaign have a go at signing it, so as many...

How long til the Cameron bubble bursts?.............

.......17 days? The world is an unpredictable place. We are fortunate to live in a part of the globe where there is more stability than in most countries. But, in relative terms, we are being shaken. The 'credit crunch', falling house prices, rising oil, fuel and food prices - all are contributing to a feeling of insecurity. And then there is the terrorist threat.....hmmm that hot potato, 42 days, ID cards, islamaphobia. Add to the mix a smidgen of xenophobia, demonising of young people, fear of crime, dirty hospitals, failing schools, oh.....and don't forget that great demon Europe. At the ...

MEPs need financial 'code of conduct'

All candidates for the European Parliament elections next year should be expected to sign a code of conduct requiring them to meet high standards of financial probity. Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat MEP who in February revealed the contents of a secret auditors' report detailing the misuse of public money by some parliamentarians, says that party leaders should come together to frame a new agreement. He claims that significant reforms supported by all British MEPs are repeatedly blocked in the European Parliament because of opposition from members elsewhere. He said: 'The Giles Chichester affair has provoked another furore over MEP ...

Two employees resign - how will the Lib Dems cope?

Sam Coates is reporting the exit of Jon Oates, the Lib Dem Director of Policy and Comms, on his blog. According to Sam, Jon is 'jumping ship' back to his old life of lobbying. In normal life, people leave their job for one or two of a hundred normal reasons, for example, getting bored with the job, surroundings or colleagues, but in politics and journalism resigning can only mean one thing...a deeper meaning. What does this mean for Nick? The Lib Dem party? Will they cope with the loss of two whole people? Is it the end for the Lib ...

Pay for Army privates scandalous

Commenting on General Sir Richard Dannatt's remarks on Army privates' pay, Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, Nick Harvey said: 'It is refreshing to hear the head of the Army being open about problems with soldiers' pay while still in post. 'Considering the massive sacrifices that we ask them to make, there is no doubt that our Army privates are scandalously underpaid. 'Privates on the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan are arguably paid less than the minimum wage on an hourly basis - a measure which the Government was careful to ensure did not apply to the Armed Forces. 'The Armed ...

Cameron's Family Agenda

David Cameron has just made a speech to the relationship guidance charity Relate, where he committed a future Conservative Government to a more family-friendly social policy. Family-friendly social policy is a clever thing for him to choose because it presents the new Tories as woolly and socially conscious whilst also touching base with his core supporters. He admitted that so far the only message his party had got across was that they wished to undo Labour's tax and benefit reforms which, it has been argued, penalised families who stayed together and made it more economically advantageous to pursue other non-traditional ...

Chance for a voting change

Next Wednesday, Peter Black, AM, is to introduce a debate on his LCO (Legislative Competence Order - see note below) on Local Government Electoral Arrangements. If successful, this would give the Assembly the power to introduce fair votes for Local Government elections, as has already been achieved in Scotland. This, of course, was one of Plaid's manifetso commitments - it will be interesting to see what they do. An LCO can be proposed by the Assembly Government, an Assembly committee, or an Assembly Member. Once approved by the Assembly, the LCO is sent to the Secretary of State to be ...

Excellent news for second children

Guido reports that Mad Nad is saying: The frenzied attack against Conservative MPs and MEPs, orchestrated by and emanating from the left wing BBC and press has equalled that of an animal in its death throes. The more terminal the position looks for Labour, the more desperate the BBC and left wing press become. The incoming Conservative government has many big dragons to slay, the BBC has to be the biggest. I suppose we all have a view on the bias of the press and for many of us it's related to our own positions. If we're left wing, we ...

Lots of angry people

Over the weekend we had the demonstration by Fathers 4 Justice. Today I attended a meeting of Tax Credit Casualties. What we have is the state intervening with families to cause chaos. With TCC there are cases where someone has to pay all their tax credit back simply because their annual return got lost in the post. Fathers 4 Justice are a form of offshoot of Families Need Fathers. Both of

New cycleway and footpath opens

A new cycleway and footpath has been opened along the edge of the Wickwar Road from St Johns Way to Southfield Way, near Peg Hill skateboard park. This will benefit local youngsters, whether travelling to the skate park or to and from Chipping Sodbury and Brimsham Green Schools. It will also provide a very pleasant walk and a link from North Yate to Chipping Sodbury, avoiding all the risks of the dangerous Wickwar Rd. The land for the route, along the edge of the playing fields, was donated by Chipping Sodbury Town Trust. The path was funded by a £94,000 ...

Lab/Con coalition made a mess of running Derby

Or so the Lib Dems have told the Derby Evening Telegraph: The new leaders of Derby City Council claim to have uncovered a £5m budget black hole created by the previous Labour/Conservative administration.The Liberal Democrat group, which took control after last month's election victory, says the council went hugely over budget in some areas, including £2.7m in adult care.It claims there is a £120m backlog in the maintenance and repair of council buildings and that the council is in danger of losing £500,000 of funding to expand the city's cycling route network because not enough has been done to increase ...

Ten Green Bloggers

Steve Webb has got together a cross-party group of ten bloggers to try to use the power of the internet to force action on climate change. Steve says 'Our particular focus was on getting the Government's climate change bill amended so that the target for cuts in CO2 emissions by 2050 was not the current rather modest 60% but a bolder 80% - the least that most people think is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change' Their first step has been to set up a website - www.canvassyourmp.com - to start a campaign to get 'real people' to go and ...

The Congestion charge could only ever work in a few cities

With Manchester being given the all clear to proceed with plans for a congestion charge, it brings in to the open that only one other city has expressed a clear and definite interest in joining London in having a congestion charge. There is, the aspect of political self interest. Any council, and party, likely to introduce a congestion charge will see the fate that befell Ken Livingstone and will no doubt take heed. This is going to be the biggest disincentive of all. But there are more important issues. Manchester has more than one public transport network, with the city ...

More on the 'Your High' controversy

I wasn't intending to return to the controversy over the Your High protest in Wallington, but I see Jayne McCoy responded to the posting over on Chris Black's blog. I've responded to that there, but I thought it might be instructive to post Jayne's views here, and my response to her. Jayne's reply: I am not sure that Mr Salmon is displaying any of the liberal values of tolerance and understanding by condemning my action without first informing himself of the background to the issue. I agree that de criminalising some drugs would enable greater control over their supply including ...

There appears to be a second Jonathan Wallace

I had a couple of phone calls on Saturday from people congratulating me on a letter in the Independent. Alas, I had to confess, the letter was not from me. There appears to be another Jonathan Wallace, though he describes himself as from Newcastle (I am from the other side of the Tyne, Gateshead!)I haven't seen the letter though I am told it is about university admissions. I'm sure it was well

Exciting news from Market Harborough

The Harborough Mail reports: A discarded cigarette caused a small fire on grassland in Harborough yesterday (June 8).It is thought that a motorist may have thrown a cigarette out of their car window in Leicester Road near to the Forest Gate Vauxhall garage.Harborough firefighters were informed but a passer-by had already put the fire out with a bucket of water.Makes the Shropsire Star look a bit tame, doesn't it?

Calder's Comfort Farm

My latest New Statesman column - in which, as ever, I view the world from this imaginary establishment atop the Stiperstones in Shropshire - can be found on the magazine's website: Ann Widdecombe rings, urging me to draw your attention to her website and the section for younger readers in particular. When I investigate it I find the Widdy Web Junior to be mostly about the cats Ann has known through her life.The first of these was Jimmy, who:'Used to go and meet my father every night when he came home on the bus from his work and he missed ...

Yes, you can have a political narrative but no, you can't own it

So the US presidential election moves from the gruelling primary election campaigns to a no doubt brutal general election campaign. A lot of the analysis about the Democratic contest boils down to one question: who created Barack Obama and who destroyed "frontrunner" Hillary Clinton? Looking ahead, the underyling question is: whose narrative is winning out: Barack Obama's or John McCain's? Most of the debate around "what is our narrative?" still tends to gloss over one brutal truth: we don't control our story. Nobody controls their story. One story can be drowned out by counter-stories, especially if the latter are simpler ...

Quotation of the day

The shortest way to turn a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows. Witness the recent vote in the British Commons on the abolition of the death penalty. Under the administration of the Tories every member of the present ministry [...]

Bollards and Bikinis

A couple of weeks ago I shrieked around the district in triumph having secured the construction of a bollard at the top of Dashwood Road. I had been trying to get it in place for about six months, and had strangled myself in more red tape than it would take to gift-wrap the Eiffel Tower. But a local resident and I got there in the end. God bless the Council and its lightning reflexes. Today someone reversed into it, knocking it down, before driving off. Which was fairly irritating. Thankfully someone got his number-plate, which I have passed on to ...

Community and Environment

Today has been so busy with four different events it is difficult to know how to write about it! Mayor's Sunday (wonderful), followed by the Environmental Road Show (very interesting) at Preston Park, followed by the Stillington Village Road show (full of community spirit) ; 40 minutes at home and then off to the confirmation of a friend and colleague at Hartlepool (very moving and what a...

What does it mean to be progressive??

I am probably pretty rare amoung Liberal Democrats in that I am happy to self-identify as left-wing and progressive. Also, I tend to view the two things as being intertwined. It's not hard to see why people don't always view the two terms as being interchangeable though; numerous ideological faultlines exist on the left which have historical origins. Liberals, socialists, Marxists all view with each other to be crowned the 'true' champions of progress. Liberals face the dilemma of defending capitalism as a more democratically structured society but managing an economic system that persists in creating a greatly unequal society. ...

Online security, Facebook applications and the like

...were covered in an interesting discussion event I attended last week. It was organised by the Open Rights Group and the British Computer Society. The event was built around the ideas put forward in Professor Jonathan Zittrain's book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It and Jonathan was joined by technology journo Bill Thompson and chair Becky Hogge, the Executive Director of the ORG. Rather than me write up my half-remembered interpretations, the wonders of modern technology can save me a lot of work by transporting you right there: the whole event was recorded and you can ...

Spelman's ludicrous defence(s)

Some Conservatives seem to be reeling from the exposure of Caroline Spelman using parliamentary expenses to pay her nanny. A most ridiculous example is Louise Bagshawe's assertion that criticism of is motivated by sexism. Are we going to have the gender-card played any time a female MP is caught in misconduct? Louise Bagshawe doesn't know what is her defence. She seems [...]

Soft Touch Cameron

Conservative Party Leader David Cameron has declared that if any of his MPs are found to be cheating on their expenses they will be sacked.  Will this be like the punishment imposed on Tory MP D...

What are Fathers for Justice for?

In the inevitable round of media interviews which has followed Fathers for Justice's rooftop protest on Harriet Harman's home, F4J founder Matt O'Connor was asked to name one piece of legislation which his group wished to repeal. Rather than point to anything specific, he instead called for a parents' bill of rights. That leaves me none the wiser as to what the group is actually calling for. And looking at the group's website doesn't provide much of a clue either. Other than an ill-defined sense of grievance about the family courts system in this country, I couldn't see many specific ...

Fathers for Justice

Saw the protesters on Harriet Harman's house - Fathers for Justice. Actually think it is completely unacceptable to go to any public elected person's house and carry out protest. By all means protest outside the House of Commons or elsewhere - but intimidating anyone in their own home is wrong - plain wrong. Having a reasonable amount of sympathy for their cause - this type of bullying and intimidation just turns me off. I will still fight for justice for fathers (and mothers) but I condemn this organisation for their action.

No End In Site

Very few things on this blog can be considered regular. One of the few consistent elements is my award for Stupidest Political Quote Of The Year, a prize which normally does a good job of being won before the summer recess. But even that isn't especially successful, particularly as it's not the snappiest title in the world and the acronym, SPQOTY, isn't much cop either. So I've been wondering

Shock horror! Caroline Spelman could be innocent.

I sometimes wonder if MPs will ever get the benefit of the doubt. As soon as something that looks vaguely dodgy emerges, the assumption is that it is more evidence that all politicians are corrupt and self-serving when most of the time that is far from the truth. You only have to look at [...]

Further blogging hiatus

Thanks to only being in the office 1 or 2 days a week and thus being V. busy and adding in the fact that we've got problems in connecting to our broadband at home, I am still unable to blog at my normal levels. I'll be back as soon as I get the home broadband scunner fixed, which hopefully, will be sooner rather than later.

Do you need help putting out your wheelie bin?

Redcar & Cleveland Council is updating the list of people requiring assistance with presenting their wheelie bin and recycling box for collection The entitlement for this is that there are no able bodied persons living at the property. If you require assistance with this service, please complete and return the slip below to: FREEPOST RRUH XEXZ UEXS, Area Management, Fairway House, Limerick Road, Redcar, TS10 5JU. If you have any queries regarding this matter please contact Tracey Thistlethwaite on 01642 776966. Name: ................................................... Phone No:.............................. Reason why assistance required No of able bodied people in home: ..................... Ages of ...

Seven Tories face sleaze probes

So says The Sun. Paul Walter has helpfully done a round-up of the latest Conservative sleaze stories in today's papers, including more news on Alan Duncan: A second member of David Cameron's shadow Cabinet faces a Parliamentary sleaze investigation after it emerged that his office is secretly funded by the head of a controversial oil company... Vitol, [...]

In for a penny...

The continuing travails of the financial markets, and the developing problems in the real economy is confusing political thinkers across the spectrum. In particular, there is a real sense of concern in Britain over the financial politics of the Euro. Many economists argue that the creation of the currency union has already brought about substantial convergence, and there is certainly substantial evidence that many countries using the single currency are moving their cycles into alignment. However, it is also true to say that within the bloc there are also several significant divergences, and the single interest rate has proven very ...

on Conservative expenses

Two years from a general election is the Tory Party set to lose a raft of MPs? Will UKIP become the fourth largest party in the Commons (or even the third largest??). David Cameron has declared that if any of his MPs are found to be cheating on their expenses they will be sacked. Given that the majority of his problems seem to be emanating from his MEPs he should probably declare the same for them. Always one for soundbites Mr. Cameron has stated his solutions but has neglected to define the problem, what we need is a list of ...

42 days, tax fuel equally, 1 in 3 in poverty?

Detaining suspects for up to 42 days without charge seems to me, to be paving the way towards allowing 'Guantanamo Bay' style detention centres in the UK. Not a road, as a society, I would want to travel down. A £10 billion tax let-off for plane fuel? To make green taxes work, fuels need to be equally taxed according to their damage to the environment. One in three children still lives in poverty in this country, this figure is bound to rise as the credit crunch bites yet I am not hearing anything about how the government is going to ...

House names

Henley constituency is a place of house names. Some are very amusing. The first Tory poster I saw was in 'Bleak House'. Nuff said!

Henley by election

We spent the weekend in Thame to help out in the Henley by election campaign. A great place to be helping out - very organised front desk again, friendly helpers. We bumped into the candidate while delivering one of the roads in the centre of Thame. He told us that the LD campaign was having a lot of impact. Certainly the choice by the Tories of a local councillor, when the local council appears to be slated over its performance, may be a faux pas. Obviously by election junkies will go anyway! But if you are looking for a bit ...

Tories up to their necks in sleaze allegations

I have lost count of the number of Tory MEPs and MPs who have been the subject of sleaze allegations over the last few days. Obligingly, Conservative Home gives us a nice little summary based on this morning's press: Seven Conservatives face sleaze questions says The Sun Five of the seven are sitting MEPs - The Sun £160,000 donated to Tories and Alan Duncan's office was not fully declared -

Labour's police state under siege

The Government's plans to make us all carry ID cards and to lock away suspected terrorists without trial for six weeks take a bit of a battering this morning with senior police officers criticising the latter whilst the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee jumps in on the former. The Guardian reports that four senior police officers who oppose the extra period of detention without charge have expressed their concerns publicly. These include: · Damage to relations with Muslim communities from whom intelligence to counter terrorism is needed; · Fears that detectives will face pressure to find, even manufacture evidence, against ...

DLT: Institute of Economic Affairs

Duncan Brack and Ed Randall, authors of the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, have kindly agreed to let us publish extracts on Lib Dem Voice. Last month, Distributism. The entire book is available on Amazon here and can also be bought at the Westminster Bookshop. The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a UK-based think-tank dedicated to [...]

Labour splits spill out onto the airwaves

Politics Home has an interesting preview of tonight's documentary on Channel 4; Gordon Brown, where did it all go wrong?? It reveals that Alistair Darling realised that the abolition of the 10p tax band would hit millions of poorer voters a year ago when he first became Chancellor. However, Gordon Brown blocked any moves to address the issue until the wide-scale revolts and backlash at the polls which we have recently seen; Darling's testimony is not exactly flattering for the Labour leader. He says; ''When I became Chancellor, you 'open the books', if you like, and you say ''what are ...

"Ten Green Bloggers sitting in a Room"

Last Monday, 2nd June, a group of 'ten green bloggers' assembled in my office at Westminster to plan to take over the universe. Or if not that, perhaps at least to save the planet. I have been aware for some time that the Lib Dems' Facebook campaign on getting the Climate Change Bill toughened up hasn't [...]

Sunday at Stokefest

At last some decent weather! Went along with friends to the annual Stokefest Festival held at Clissold Park which is at the bottom of my road. In recent weeks Clissold Park has hosted funfairs, a circus and a Turkish Festival - all braving torrential rain. So the lovely weather drew thousands of people, literally. I'm told that there were far more than the expected 30,000 people. So much so that it meant long queues for absolutely everything, including food, drinks, ice creams and the toilets. I know we're in the middle of a credit crunch, but £2 for a small ...

Blackness Road - north side - pavement

At the Planning & Transport Committee (which I chair), we recently agree to various pavement improvements - Blackness Road (north side - east of Ashbank Road) was amongst these - and pleased to see work already underway (see below).

The Monday Morning Blog - power down and solar powered

It is Monday morning and as usual I am waiting for a train to Kings Cross. And amazingly, National Express have not cancelled my service! I got a message yesterday to tell me that a fire at a substation in London had cut the power supply to the flat. And then I saw it on the news - a huge fire that had cut the supply to 40,000 homes. The latest is that there is still no power at the flat. I

TheyWorkForYou Video Fun

A great new system has been built into TheyWorkForYou for adding video clips to Parliamentary speeches. A key element of this is that users should help with matching video to written speeches. This volunteer effort has already matched over 10,000 clips. Amazing. If you have a few minutes pop over there and make your contribution to Parliamentary transparency.

How Can Iris be Allowed to Chair Health Committee?

UPDATED: [Following some further background reading into the situation I have felt it pertinent to make a couple of additional comments contained within the square brackets.] Iris Robinson is an elected MLA in the Northern Ireland Assembly and MP at Westminster. As such such she is elected to represent all the people of Strangford irrespective of race, gender, religion, political preference or

West End Community Council Update

I've launched today my June 2008 Update to West End Community Council. Issues covered include Post Office closures, residents' parking and roads/pavement issues. If you click on the headline above, you can download the update.

Is non-intrusive road pricing possible?

I have two problems with the recent Lib Dem policy announcement about using road pricing to lower fuel duties and fund spending on infrastructure for more "environmentally friendly" forms of transport. The one, which I will return to in another post, is about the difficulty of solving two problems - paying for roads and trying to force people off them - with this one policy. But for now I want to suggest a solution to those many commenters on the Lib Dem Voice thread that any implementation of road pricing is going to be necessarily an intrusion on our privacy. ...

Waaaaaaaaaaaant!

Coffin Pool Table, anyone?

Is the ban on 'topping up' NHS treatment even legal...

...let alone enforceable? A row that has so far been played out in the pages of the august British Medical Journal has suddenly burst out onto the public stage as MPs have found constituents being told they will have to pay for their NHS treatment because they've paid for additional drugs or treatments, for example that the NHS doctor tells them may help but cannot be prescribed by them. But is the notion that you can be barred from receiving the treatment your tax already pays for even legal? Apply the same argument to education, for example, and parents who ...

No politics - doing the allotment instead

No politics, no meetings, no leaflets this weekend. It is all off the agenda until after Alan's funeral on Wednesday. It meant a weekend spent on the allotment attacking the weeds. I had to ship over 85 litres of water (from my Saturday evening bath) to water the plants. We have a 25 litre and a 10 litre water carrier. The larger one we put on a porter's trolley to get to the allotment. I'm sure

Surveillance State: Select Committee catches on ten years too late?

The Home Affairs Select Committee has apparently published a report suggesting that we may be wandering unaware into a Surveillance State. Just where have these people been for the last decade and more? When I was on Oxford City Council we used to receive applications for new CCTV cameras and we were often cautious about permitting them. To be fair to the Greens on the council at the time it was usually they who made most noise about the civil liberties connotations (maybe they were on the wrong side of the "If you have nothing to hide" argument!). I also ...

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Monday 9th June 2008

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