LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Monday 16th June 2008

The people have spoken. The eejits.

Actually, contrary to what the above headline might imply (I couldn't resist), I'm actually quite sanguine about the Irish "no" vote on Thursday. I'm not at all convinced that Europe has been "saved" by the Irish or that the Lisbon Treaty was anything other than a moderate and sensible reform, but this latest chapter in EU reform has been farcical from beginning to end and I pray dearly that it will soon be over. The fundamental problem is that, since the mid-eighties we have had one EU reforming treaty after another. As soon as one is out of the way, ...

Selly Oak Constituency Committee - 16 June 2008

The agenda for the meeting of the Selly Oak Constituency Committee on Tuesday 18 March 2008 has now been published and is available online. The meeting will be held at 7pm in the The Hub Hazelwell, 318 Vicarage Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham. Items on the agenda include: the Neighbourhood Advice and Information Service;the Selly Oak Revenue and Capital Budget;the Constituency Plan Annual Report

Local MP blogs on the Irish question

Over on Lib Dem Voice, Edward Davey has been blogging about the Irish 'No' vote. (Perhaps I'll persuade him to start a proper blog of his own one day...)

Happy Birthday, Magna Carta (now lock it away)!

Magna Carta grudgingly received Bad King John's Seal 793 years ago yesterday, and though our liberties have rolled forward across the eight centuries since, Bad King Gordon still begrudges even those granted in 1215. Magna Carta is worth remembering because it made two huge advances against absolute power; last week, the Labour Government shamefully cut away at two fundamental rights. Two? Yes. With everyone's attention on 42 days, a just as shocking change got through with hardly anyone noticing. Then yesterday Gordon Brown celebrated Magna Carta's anniversary by having George W Bush round, causing satire to curl up and die. ...

FFW 2008 - a Long and Rambling Review (part 1 of 4 - Friday)

Mat wanted to see Braindead although unfortunately he ended up seeing Brain Dead) so we went in early and picked up passes, and then he went into the film and I went back to Brighouse to meet people. {[info]} karohemd, {[info]} burlesque_bunny, {[info]} pmoodie and El, Daz and Sladds, Jelly and Mitch, and the lovely Jacob Marley among them. Much of the meeting happened in The Old Ship, and I ate half of {[info]} karohemd's pudding for him, then we mob-handed the 363 and sallied forth to fair Bradford whence the first film I saw was: Black Christmas (1974) dir. ...

Young people campaign for action on Bowerdean Road

Young resident Demi presented a 1200 name petition over a year ago demanding action to make Bowerdean Road safer. Today, Demi and friend Scott were joined by Councillor Julia Wassell, Councillor Chaudhary Ditta and Parliamentary Campaigner Steve Guy to discuss options with officers from Bucks County Council. On the agenda were speed bumps, a 20mph speed limit, a pedestrian crossing and a variety of other measures. The campaign team were pleased to come away with a firm promise of new white lines and SLOW signs on the road. This is just the start. You can be sure that the Lib ...

Pathways to Healthcare

As residents know, the health service in this area has been looking at changes to hospital provision for several years. The latest scheme involves building one new hospital to serve Hartlepool, Stockton and parts of Easington and Sedgefield, closing both North Tees and Hartlepool hospitals and having a lot more services available 'in the community'. Of course that phrase means different things

More Gnat gimmicks on booze

I have blogged before about the Gnats' tendency to come up with eye-catching but ineffective gimmicks to tackle the problems of binge drinking in Scotland. And they're at it again. This latest idea is particularly nonsensical, as I'm not even sure that the Scottish Government has the power to set a minimum price for alcohol. Would it not be illegal under European law for government to set a minimum price for any product? Even if that problem can be avoided, I would also question whether the Scottish Government has the power under the Scotland Act to carry out such a ...

What was the worst invention of the twentieth century?

Amazing what you get in your councillor post: here comes a leaflet from the Department of Transport on Changing the Way We Learn to Drive. Those who have had the privilege to be driven by me often believe it to be an unrepeatable experience. I hope the two-wheeled turn in 2002 was nothing to do with the then passenger, my future ward colleague, standing down six years later. So, perhaps I'm not qualified to judge other people's driving. And, frankly, if I was asked the old chestnut of Civil Service interviews -- what's the worst invention of the twentieth century ...

Trivial Philosophical Fact of the Day

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Hayek were distant cousins. According to the Friesian School website, 'Wittgenstein's maternal grandmother was the sister of Hayek's maternal great-grandfather'.

Another needless tragedy

There hardly seems to be a week go by at the moment without the awful news that children have been killed in some horrific way at the hands of a parent, usually their father, on a contact visit. I know that what I'm going to say will be controversial, but I am concerned that perhaps the courts are too keen to make contact orders in favour of people who simply are not stable enough to be trusted with the care of their own children. I'm not quite sure what to do about this - perhaps some sort of psychiatric evaluation ...

Europe and Latin America

As the Bolivian President, Evo Morales, pertinently reminds us, in a piece in today's 'Guardian', Europe has been a continent of emigration for most of its modern history. The inward flows that have been perplexing some European governments are a very recent phenomenon. When European parliamentarians later this week discuss proposed measures that would deal [...]

Dominic Grieve joins the Bullingdon Club

One result of David Davis's decision to gallop off madly in all directions has been Dominic Grieve's promotion to shadow home secretary. He is an effective, courteous performer in the Commons and has always struck me as a lawyerly, even scholarly, figure. But in Sunday's Observer Pendennis showed another side to him: One person who will perhaps be a little anxious at the news that David Davis has been replaced as shadow Home Secretary by Dominic Grieve is Conservative MP Damian Green, who has the immigration brief in Grieve's new department. The two men were at Oxford together in the ...

Fantastic Films festival at the Media Museum

Jennie and Mat Photo by karohemdI think I'm beginning to recover from the exhaustion now. Had a simply marvellous (darling) weekend, involving meeting many people, consuming much alcohol and watching many many many films. On Friday alone I was sat in various cinemas for over 81/2 hours. So, for those interested, a summary review of the films I watched, in order of showing. Day one: Friday 13th12.00 Brain DeadNot, unfortunately, the Peter Jackson film that launched his career, but a completely different USian film made in 2007. It was a parody/homage to early 80s horror trash movies, bunch of fools ...

Now that's what I call a cover version

I really hate it when bands or groups do cover versions which end up sounding exactly like the song they are covering. A good example is Steps version of Better the Devil you know by Kylie, but there are dozens of others. So despite the people on YouTube who seem to loathe this, for my money this cover version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, originally by Nirvana but covered by the great Paul Anka (who wrote 'My Way'), is a truly brilliant cover version.

Hampshire County Council financial spending exposed

Smannell Lib Dems have used the freedom of information act to expose the woeful spending record of Hampshire County Council in Smannell Parish. In the last 2 financial years, 2005/2006 and 2007/2008 Lib Dem campaigner Nigel Gooding has established that Hampshire County Council collected just over £300000 from the residents of Smannell (For the purposes of accuracy this is collected by Test Valley on behalf of Hants CC) From further enquiries under the Freedom of Information Act we have established that Hampshire Highways have spent just £6200 in capital expenditure on our roads in the two corresponding years on our ...

Lots of Lib Dem Leaders in Thame!

It was Leaders day in Thame today as Nick Clegg, Ming Campbell and Paddy Ashdown all came to support Stephen Kearney on the campaign trail. They all received a hugely supportive reception from the shoppers in the town on another beautiful sunny day. As well as chatting to shoppers, they popped into lots of the local shops which are feeling the strain of changes in local shopping habits. One of the key issues in Thame is the proposal to move the cattle market from the centre of town. Whilst all seem agreed that this is a good idea, there is ...

Britblog Roundup 174

Knock three times and ask for Mr Eugenides.

Three leaders in one day

It's 20 years since I organised my first Leaders' visit when the then relatively unknown Paddy Ashdown visited the small Lib Dem branch at Leicester University. (Those were the days when getting into double figures in the polls would have been considered a major success!) Today, though, was a first for me with not one, not two but three leaders all on one visit. Paddy, Ming Campbell and Nick Clegg were all in Thame to support Stephen Kearney's campaign in the Henley by-election. Tory candidate John Howell was under further pressure today over his links with property developers. There are ...

Gordon Brown Nose

Why am I still surprised, disgruntled and revolted by Gordon Brown ? Could it be his choice of dinner guests - George Bush and Rupert Murdoch ? No, bad as that is, it's that ghastly smile with which he declared Bush 'a true friend of Britain'. And people are afraid that the European Union is running Britain !!!!! Open your eyes, Europhobes.

Wycombe Tories can't add up!

On the Wycombe Liberal Democrat website, we have always taken a 'liberal' approach to allowing comments on our articles (even if we don't always agree with them). Over the last year, we have had a spate of Tory trolls using the comment facility to point out minor grammatical and spelling errors. Sadly, the same right of comment does not apply on the Wycombe Tory website. A pity, as I would have been tempted to point out that someone can't add up! Their news article reporting that Councillor Ditta had joined the Liberal Democrats claims that we are still the smallest ...

Bush and Brown Talk

Mr Bush visited Mr Brown and they got together and held talks about the world crisis. Mr Brown and Mr Bush got together and they thanked and praised each other for the courtesy towards each other. Mr Bush thanked the British Government for being tough of terror. Basically Mr Bush is saying to Mr Brown that carry on with your policy and we the UK will be the second guantanamo bay because it will be holding people for 42 days without telling them anything or charging them. Mr Bush was the guy who started the War in Iraq. Mr Blair ...

Sam Nunn looking favourable for the Democratic VP slot

Fresh from my success of winning a bet on Obama to be Democratic Presidential candidate (placed 14th February 2007 at 13/5) I have now bet on Sam Nunn to be his running mate. The odds of 25/1 on Paddy Power were somewhat of a persuader. My thinking goes like this. Obama has got to choose someone with sound national security credentials and long experience (to match his somewhat short experience)

The McCain strategy - straight from the horse's mouth

watch this McCain strategy video. Don't write the guy off.

Paton's Lane

I have been in discussion over the past 24 hours with both local residents and the Police about the signage at Paton's Lane as the gas replacement works move eastwards along Perth Road. There was some confusion about signage, but now resolved. Here's the latest update from Scotland Gas Network's contractors Turriff : 'The problem was caused by Paton's Lane being open from Perth Road and the signs at the bottom of the lane still in operation, the No Entry Signs were blanked off and a special sign on Magdalen Yard Road informing traffic that Paton's Lane was open from ...

Those Remaining Gordon Brown Supporters In Full

George W Bush Norman Tebbit Ian Paisley Ann Widdecombe Rupert Murdoch ...Which begs the question: how did he upset Robert Mugabe? Labour members must be so proud. Well, they would be if they weren't all queuing up to back anyone else to hand, anyway.

Trapped in my ivory tower

We're having a few problems here at Euston Tower today. For those of you familiar with the London skyline, it's the old Capital Radio building on the corner of Euston Road and Hampstead Road opposite Warren Street station. Due to a power failure, the south spur has lost electricity. We'd already lost telephones over the weekend and now, we have no lift service. At least there's a good view from

Caseworker needed

I'm looking for a part-time caseworker in my constituency office. Two and a half days a week, in our Hornsey (London N8) office. If you're interested, there are more details on Work 4 an MP.

No return

Hat-tip to Rachel from North London for pointing out this good-news story about the many ways in which ordinary people are rallying to protect asylum-seekers in their local communities.

Politics today is Tory vs Tory (where are the liberals?)

the 49 percent of Americans who have been complaining for five years about George W. Bush being a dictator are now vexed to the point of utter incoherence because for the last fortnight he has failed to do a sufficiently convincing impression of a dictator. Colby Cosh of Canada's National Post on the aftermath of Katrina [...]

Why has Cameron chosen Alan Duncan as the man to prove the Tories are green ?

If David Cameron wanted to show us that he might be serious on green issues, perhaps it would have been a good idea not to do it standing next to Alan 'Mr Oil' Duncan. Mr Duncan's register of interests shows him as 'Owner of Harcourt Consultants advisers on oil and gas matters' and as a guest of the Sultan of Oman. Also, he owes his considerable wealth to a career in the oil industry starting

Enough

As of May 3, 139 soldiers, 25 Marines and seven sailors have killed themselves in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones, according to Pentagon data. Can we leave now?

Reverse Graffiti - pretty cool

Check out this video of reverse graffiti (cleaning dirty surfaces with a stencil). I think its pretty cool. Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

Henley by-election campaign ups pressure over developer links

The Liberal Democrat Henley by-election campaign has upped the pressure today on John Howell, the Conservative candidate, over his controversial links to property developers. From the party's press release: The Liberal Democrats have today written to the Conservative candidate in the Henley by-election, John Howell, urging him to clarify his links to property developers for the sake [...]

Wish fulfillment?

Ambrose Evans Pritchard, the business columnist of the Daily Telegraph has an agenda: he does not support the Euro. Fair enough. He writes a lot about the problems he sees with the currency Also, fair enough. His latest story on the subject is that Germans are now no longer accepting Euro notes with serial numbers that show that they are printed in Latin countries like Spain (prefix letter V) or Italy (prefix letter S), and are swapping these for notes with the German prefix X. If true, then this is extremely serious, since it implies that German consumers might refuse ...

Bournemouth Conference - preliminary agenda published

The Preliminary Agenda for the federal conference in Bournemouth in September is now available on the party website. All the policy and business motions included, including those accompanying the two policy papers (on security policy and on transport), are open to amendment; the deadline is 12 noon on Wednesday 9 July. This is also the deadline for [...]

New Labour mindset in a single blogger

.. I present the real and parody version of Luke Akehurst's blog - including such highlights as "Gandhi, Magna carta blah blah blah", patronising Rachel North (yes, That "Rachel of north london" Rachel). I think it shows exactly the kind of brain... Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Europe the way forward?

As we ponder the way forward in Europe perhaps the devolution position in the UK is a model to consider. In Scotland the settled will suggested full law making from day one would fly while in Wales the settled will would have voted no out of hand so we have a partial solution and a roadmap to something better. The EU problem is that, to continue the analogy, they have imposed the Scottish Model

Ways to Campaign!

Every party has its own different ways of campaigning. I myself have found this out from my own experience. Some Parties like to get all the information to the people using leaflets. The leaflets contain all the campaigns the candidate supports and his or her comment on the campaign. They is one problem the fact that some people do not read the leaflet and just throw it in the bin. When a Election leaflet goes threw the door people don't some time take notice of it and they just end up throwing it in the bin. The information does not ...

Opinion: Blue Skies Thinking

There is a section in Douglas Adams' great work Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where the residents of earth decide they have had enough of consultants, public relations men, telephone sanitizers and other non-productive sorts. They send them out into space in a specially selected spacecraft for VIPs, claiming the planet is about to be [...]

We're planning to cause more fly-tipping, says council

The latest edition of South Gloucestershire News says: 'The council is getting tough on those who blight our landscape with fly tipping and litter... The amount of illegal dumping is expected to increase for a number of reasons. European rules make it increasingly difficult and expensive to dispose of waste legally. The council is also likely to have to introduce charges for every bulky waste collection soon, to raise income for other initiatives' So the Tories are not only blaming litter on the EU, they're admitting that their new policies will increase fly-tipping. At the moment households get one free ...

Après les 24h d'AL, un grand débat sur les Européennes !

Chers Adhérents, chers Sympathisants, Réforme des institutions qui rate les vrais enjeux (renforcement du pouvoir du Parlement, introduction de la proportionnelle, suppression du Sénat, suppression du département...), subventions « essence » accordées à certaines catégories professionnelles, maintien de la durée légale du travail à 35h, débat sur les retraites qui oublie de repenser le système par répartition : le gouvernement patine et refuse d'engager les vraies réformes sans lesquelles notre pays ne pourra retrouver le chemin de la prospérité. Face à cet immobilisme gouvernemental, Alternative Libérale se mobilise pour présenter aux Français ce que pourraient être de vraies réformes libérales. ...

Carry On Upping Khyber Troop Numbers

George W. Bush is in the UK, possibly seeking sanctuary from the attacks from John McCain and Barak Obama. However, with the American President in the area Gordon 'Tim'rous Beastie' Brown took the opportunity of his moral support to announce an increase in British troop numbers in Afghanistan; as is typical of such announcements under Labour the House of Commons will only get their announcement

David Davis is the sort of person...

...who makes it quite impossible for me to even think about joining or voting for the Tory party. Paul Walter today quotes from Ben Bradshaw on Davis: Liberal Burblings: Davis: "Libertarianism" that is extremely narrow Today, Ben Bradshaw points out Davis' far from libertarian approach to equal rights: The notion that David Davis is a libertarian will provoke hollow laughter from Britain's gays and lesbians. Davis has opposed every freedom extended to gay and lesbian people, from the freedom to register one's partnership to the freedom to serve one's country. He has one of the worst voting records in the ...

on Ireland and the Lisbon Treaty

So Ireland has said no to the Lisbon Treaty (53.4% said no, 46.6% said yes), the mini-treaty created to salvage all the best bits from the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Having read the latter, I was hoping that the Lisbon Treaty would be endorsed. Increasingly, people in the UK are keen to say no because they can, rather than actually voting on the issue. How many people read the Lisbon Treaty or its predecessor? Granted, the Treaty is written in legal jargon, but that's how treaties are written. If it was a short snappy to the point document ...

Simon Hoggart declared wrong on wind turbines by his own newspaper

The other day, the Guardian's Simon Hoggart had a rant against wind turbines which included this line: ...since they have to be turning all the time to prevent seizing up, they have to draw on the grid, so much of the time they are actually wasting power I am pleased to say that the official voice of Simon's own newspaper, through its Corrections and Clarifications column, has now confirmed

Mugabe's achilles heel is his wallet

So writes Nick Clegg in today's Times. He goes on to write, In less than two weeks the fate of the people of Zimbabwe will be determined by the result of a run-off presidential election. If Robert Mugabe is allowed to steal that election the tragedy will be complete. The scale of the catastrophe that Mugabe [...]

Marylebone?

I've just discovered the little-known Chiltern Railways - and the best fares to Birmingham! The story is this - Marylebone Station must be smallest mainline terminus in London, with only 6 platforms. The main user is Chiltern Railways. I travel by train to meetings and conferences around the country, and I normally book my tickets online through The Trainline. When I go to...

Fabulous tennis final - one more week to Wimbledon!

Managed to watch the Artois Championships yesterday to see Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in the final - great match, can't wait for Wimbledon. http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/index.html

Blue or Green? Cameron tries to convince us that Davey won't Waver

Cameron outlined his 'Blue Green Charter' in a speech today. Its somewhat disturbing reading for Lib Dem policy wonks. He harps heavily about battery cars, investment in the transport networks and the idiocy of the third runway at Heathrow - all strong points of reference in Lib Dem environment messaging. His message on nuclear is pretty weak, trying to distance the Tories from the Government, pretty unsuccessfully in my view. The importance he places on tidal power is striking and surprising given the relative infancy of tidal technology. He certainly has a point with the enormous potential tidal power at ...

New Week

Another week beginneth, as it probably says in an ancient text somewhere... This week there are no Council meetings as such, although there are a couple of Lib Dem meetings to attend. We have a meeting of the Council Group later on today, when all 9 Lib Dem Councillors come together. So if anyone wants to stage a coup d'etat in Prestwich, that would be an ideal time. We'll all be busy. The on Wednesday there's a meeting of the local party Executive in Elton, to which all members are welcome to come. Council-wise, I have spent a portion of ...

They're everywhere!

The customised Superlambananas are out in force! Even on a short walk through part of Liverpool today I came across nine different ones! Producing these replicas with designs tied in to organisations is a great way of getting a lot more public art out there. Some of the designs are very much tied into the organisation involved. The one outside the register office has confetti designs for example. Whoever had this idea needs huge congratulations

Henley: What a nice place

Henley constituency really is a nice place. On Saturday I wandered through the sleepy streets (well, street, singular) of Sydenham delivering target letters to houses which were mainly called 'The Thatched Cottage' or 'The Barn' before having some lunch and a shandy at the Emmington Arms just down the road... And Henley constituency Conservatives are rattled. They are clearly worried by the fact that John Howell, the Conservative candidate, is a lobbyist for a planning consultancy which helps people build housing developments. Indeed, their last leaflet was a glossy A3 trying to 'rebut' the fact that, er, their candiate is ...

Getting on-line

The new-look Western Mail website carries an interesting article about the use of the internet by politicians in America. The piece carries a familiar message, that the internet is one of a campaign's most powerful weapons and Welsh politicians ignore it at their peril. To an extent they are right, but I think we also need to recognise that UK politicians are working in a different context to their American counterparts. The level of internet penetration is not so great, nor is our culture so advanced that people conduct their daily business on-line to the same extent. I do not ...

David Davis is no liberal, but we are probably right not to stand

When a big political story happens I usually want to post straightaway, although far too often it takes me ages and the world has moved on in the meantime. However there are times when I am glad not to have posted straightaway and this is one of them. My first reaction to us deciding not [...]

Terror victim does not support 42 days

'Rachel from north London' - a high-profile victim of the London bombings - does not back the Government's proposals to take away our hard-won freedoms. Neither do many others that she links to in her blog. And America's 9/11 commission does not sound keen either: 'Our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet, if our liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are

Nick Clegg on education

Nick Clegg is making a major speech on education today, and it's (already) getting some heavy coverage in the media: Schools should be less constrained by the National Curriculum, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, says on Monday. In a speech to the Centre Forum think-tank at the Microsoft headquarters in London, he will call for an [...]

The Irish Question for David Cameron

David Cameron is reported to be 'delighted' at the result of the Irish referendum. In which case, he has now added Sinn Fein to the list of rather unsavoury European parties that the Conservatives are prepared to form expedient alliances with. SF joins Putin's United Russia (already allied with the Tories in the Council of Europe) and the Italian Fascist Party (potential allies in the European Parliament, after the Conservatives leave the EPP) in the Blue corner. The problem, it seems to me, is that the Conservative party remains very unclear about what it wants from the European Union. It ...

Let's abolish the eu.

So British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thinks the EU should forge ahead with ratification of the Lisbon Treaty despite the Irish 'no' in their recent referendum. Is this the moment the EU cracks? When in the early 1990s Danish voters similarly opposed the Maastricht Treaty, EC commissioner Jacques Delors said the rest of Europe should forge ahead and our Prime Minister, John Major (remember him?) said no, we all move forward together or not at all. I was told by an old lecturer of mine that that was a good evening to be British in the bars of Copenhagen... Once ...

Two interest US presidential race sites

Both provide predictions for the outcome. One based upon prediction markets, the other based upon polling. First up is electoralmap.net which uses the state of play on Intrade's prediction markets to generate a map of the likely outcomes in each state and overall. There's historical maps too so you can see how the market is changing over [...]

Two BMWs on expenses for Tory MEP Den Dover

Nice!

Building Liberal Communities 2

As we heard yesterday, the party held a local government conference in Birmingham over the weekend. Today's podcast contains the keynote speakers from the lunchtime session. The star-studded panel included Cllr John Commons, Mayor Dorothy Thornhill, Shadow Environment Secretary Prof Steve Webb MP and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne MP. As you'd imagine, both Steve Webb and [...]

Tuesday 10th June 11am

Launch of the Mental Health Carers' Manual It has taken four years to bring this manual to fruition so it was with some pride that staff from the Sutton Carers Centre announced its launch. The manual looks great and is also available on CD. Carers in general get a raw deal in terms of acknowledgement of [...]

Davis: 'Libertarianism' that is extremely narrow

Stephen Tall pointed out yesterday that David Davis has been an enthusiastic supporter of the death penalty. Jo Anglezarke reminds us that he opposed the Human Rights Act. I also note that his solution to the Burma-cyclone crisis was: Invade the country, shoot the generals, feed the people Today, Ben Bradshaw points out Davis' far from libertarian approach to equal rights: The notion that

The Beeb tell me to get stuffed

OK, not in so many words but the following is the reply I received from the BBC in response to my complaint about its election night results coverage in May: Dear Mr Salmon Thank you for your e-mail regarding 'Election Night 2008'. Please accept our apologies for the delay in our response, we do hope that you were not too inconvenienced. I appreciate that you were bitterly disappointed with the graphics which accompanied our coverage. Our election coverage has always been about providing viewers with the latest information as it happens in an informative but also entertaining and engaging way. ...

Why no garter for Michael Hastings ?

Prince William is to be made a Royal Knight of the Garter today. Can I just say that this is an example of an entirely pointless waste of time, energy and money? The only point of it, if there is one, is to enshrine the idea that a highly questionable line of sucession actually means something. Oh, and a few extra visitors to Windsor are very welcome. Next time my units calculator allows me, I

Liverpool International Tennis Tournament

More people should know about this tournament! It's a rare chance to see a lot of tennis without travelling out of the City - and some of the stars of the future were on show. I went on two days - last Thursday and yesterday. It all took part in Calderstones Park. The women's singles finals yesterday was particularly good with the runner up last year winning this year after a pretty closely matched contest. What I liked best about the tournament though was the very organised way in which groups of school children are involved. They get to see ...

Why the EU is losing the argument

It's no use blaming the Irish. If it hadn't been they who rejected the Lisbon Treaty it would likely have been any number of other European countries if their leaders had had the guts to ask the people what they thought. The fact - which surely must now be universally acknowledged and faced up to [...]

My Haltemprice and Howden connection

Not a lot of people know this, such is the popular perception of the city of Kingston upon Hull that I rarely even admit it to myself, but Haltemprice and Howden is my place of birth. To be more precise, Woodgates Nursing Home, North Ferriby. At the time my folks lived in Woodlands Drive, Anlaby and my dad worked for Northern Foods. We returned to the area when I was eight and lived in West End, South Cave for a year or so. I went to Hymers, dad worked as Finance Director at Moore's of Hull (then an Opel and ...

Day 2716: We Can be Britain's Baracks - Why you should be in Henley this week! aka Millennium Elephant meets Stephen Kearney (who is BRILLIANT!)

Sunday: It has been QUITE a week hasn't it, what with the 42 days, the madness of Mr Davis David and the Euro No in Ireland... and unfortunately it has also been a busy time for Daddy Richard which is why it has taken so long to write up my interview with the frankly BRILLIANT Mr Stephen Kearney, Liberal Democrat Candidate to... well I COULD say 'replace BoJo the Clown' but it's about time the people of Henley, Thame and South Oxfordshire had a PROPER MP and Mr Stephen could be it! So get yourselves to Henley. Or to Thame. ...

Monday 16th June 2008

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