LibDem Blogs - Archived! - Wednesday 18th June 2008

Those possible Haltemprice & Howden candidates in full

Labour and the Liberal Democrats may not be standing, but there could still be a colourful list of candidates on the ballot paper at Haltemprice & Howden. The Birmingham Post reports: Earlier this week, stallholder Eamonn Fitzpatrick, 58, from Northampton, said he would show rival candidates "what politics is all about" by contesting the seat.Miss Great Britain Gemma Garrett has also announced her interest, asking whether Mr Davis was "a little crazy" to give up his seat for something she described as "a little bit trivial".Another potential candidate is the political writer Neil Glass, who has promised to donate half ...

Via claire_wain, best comment on Scientology EVAR!

Waitrose: a wolf in sheep's clothing?

Last year, the press carried warnings about Waitrose's ambitions: here, in the Guardian, for example. Last month, Waitrose,the food retailing arm of the John Lewis Partnership, announced plans to open up to 100 smaller format stores in market towns up and down the country. Apparently, these will 'reflect the ambience of the traditional grocery shop.' How sweet: how very Waitrose. Ok, so Waitrose

on Hillary Clinton not becoming Vice-Presidential candidate

On Monday, Barack Obama's campaign team announced the chief of staff for his (soon to be named) Vice-Presidential nominee. Rumours are afoot that Hillary Clinton is far from happy at the choice and that she sees this as a signal that she is not going to be the Vice-Presidential candidate. It is not uncommon for Presidential nominee's to choose their running mate's top team, so as to control their campaign by ensure clarity of message and control over staff. To that end Barack Obama the Democratic Party's candidate for President in November has chosen Patti Solis Doyle, the former campaign ...

'Powerful message' to hit Henley tomorrow

...Just back from visit Number nine to the Henley campaign. Things are in an impressive high gear in the LibDem organisation. Canvassing is showing a definite swing to us. Please help if you can. See details here. The agent, Miranda Roberts has emailed me with some exciting news and a good reason to visit the campaign tomorrow: But Thursday this week - that's tomorrow! - is going to be crucial

Its not just Jock Coats

Its not just Jock who wants the legalisation, taxation, and regulation of all drugs. John Stossel has written a compelling article setting out the same position. Do give it a read and give it some thought. P.S. High Society by Ben Elton has a good legalisation politics plot.

Pictures from the Yorkshire Regiment Freedom Parade in Redcar today

Pictures from the Yorkshire Regiment Parade today taken by Derek Hudson. Tyne Tees TV news showed us waving the Yorkshire flags during their news coverage of the event.

Another Couple Of Tories Caught Out

What is it about Tories and expenses.  They rightly join in the criticism of the system and make noises about how the rules should be tightened and then when MPs and MEPs are caught with the...

Bush pushes forward colanisation of Iraq

I have to say that I feel Iraq is a forgotten story which is rarely considered worthy of front-page news anymore. This is not the case in America where it still receives an awful lot of column inches. Geroge Bush is currently continuing to press forward with a deal which will effectively mean Iraq becoming a colony of America. Karl Meyer has an excellent piece in the New York Times which savages the deal as a repeat of past mistakes. Specifically he compares it too the failed treaty between Britain and Iraq in 1930 which led to a wave of ...

The Travellers return!

Unfortunately, the travellers have returned to Cintra Ave. Residents observed them arriving in the early hours of the morning (approx. 2am on 18 June 2008). The RBC parks manager and the council's traveller liaison officer have visited the site and served notice requesting that the travellers leave  immediately. They have however advised that they have no intention of doing so. As a consequence, the councils legal team will now begin the required legal process to regain possession of the land immediately. All the materials are now ready and the required land checks have been carried out - So as soon ...

New 'cleaner' buses

RBC have just introduced a fleet of new buses to replace those on the No. 17 route. So what's so special about that? Well, they run on ethanol which when burnt in a combustion engine emit lower levels of carbon dioxide. {Reading_transport_1103} This is a good start, and the RBC officers have thought this through by opting for ethanol from an industrial waste stream. Locally, it will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released from buses in Reading. The ethanol they are using is made by fermenting by-products from the sugar beet refining process. Although ethanol does indeed give off ...

Biological Determinism - an illustrated guide as to why it is complete bollocks

Because some people didn't seem to understand what I was getting at here, I am going to try again, with the help of MS paint. For any given data set measuring the differences between men and women, the Venn Diagram will look something like the one above. The blue circle is men, and the pink circle is women (the pink one is slightly bigger because in an average population there are slightly more women than men). The little blue square is the average man, and the little pink square is the average woman. There is a large overlap between the ...

PMQs: Nick tackles Gordon on fuel poverty

At this week's Prime Minister's Questions, the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg quizzed Gordon Brown on how he was going to help the millions of families and pensioners set to fall into fuel poverty this year because of rising fuel prices. For the Tories, David Cameron went on about the Lisbon treaty. As usual, it [...]

Boris 'clears Ken's wimmin' from City Hall

Yes, this is the headline in today's London Evening Standard. 5 senior 'wimmin' as they cutely put it, who all worked as Livingstone's advisers saw their jobs axed. One of the posts to go is the role of women's adviser, which is described by the new Tory administration as a 'throwback' to the age of political correctness. Have to say I have some sympathy with this. The majority of local council's who had women's units throughout the 80'-90's have merged these into an equality and diversity unit, which in today's unequal Britian, I'm afraid to say are still very much ...

Wait a minute, Waitrose

Hot off the press is the news that Waitrose has taken over some Woolworths sites, including one in Islington. I'm assuming that this is the big Woolworths in Chapel Market/Liverpool Road at the Angel, not the one at Archway. Everyone loves Waitrose don't they - all the lovely food, ethical sourcing, partnership schemes, and relatively uncrowded [...]

Lib Dem MPs in Daisy Chain shocker!

Four Lib Dem MPs were on hand to assist with the unloading of a special delivery this afternoon in the Thame HQ. Alan Reid, Malcolm Bruce, John Hemming and Jeremy Browne had all just returned from leading canvass teams when the van pulled up containing the new campaign magazine backing Stephen Kearney's campaign. All hands were needed to unload the magazine so that it could be bundled and out on the streets as soon as possible and the MPs were first in line to help. So it was Malcolm... to Jeremy... to Alan... to John (with a little help from ...

The best campaign magazine ... EVER!

Here in Thame we've just taken delivery of a very large pile of fantastic campaign magazines. In my view they may be the best by-election magazines ever. (Yes even better than the 'Sedgfield Whippet'.) Come to Thame and pick up a bundle, but be warned, they are shifting fast ;-)

Public bodies must not wriggle out of FoI obligations - Howarth

Commenting on today's statement on Freedom of Information by Jack Straw, Liberal Democrat Justice Spokesperson, David Howarth said: 'It is difficult to see how we can be in an era of free information when over one in three requests is not fully resolved and one in five is point-blank refused. 'There are also genuine concerns over the creeping use of fees and exemptions as public bodies seek to wriggle away from their obligations. 'Lord Falconer's attempts to curb freedom of information on grounds of costs were rebuffed last year. They must remain rebuffed.'

Columbus and Cabot: pioneers of intellectual property

Poor old Columbus, Cabot and Vespucci, slipping by the week out of respectable history - Columbus as a brutal maniac, Cabot as a failure and Vespucci as a liar. Why don't we give them their due? Because actually, they didn't get to America first. The place was already populated, and the Vikings, the Chinese and probably the Bristol fishermen had long since made a similar crossing. Nor did they understood where they had arrived, though there is new evidence that Cabot may have done so. No, what guaranteed them a place in history when those before are all but forgotten ...

Patrick Mercer's Waterloo

The Association of European Journalists (AEJ), being an intrinsically pro-European assemblage of hacks, does not normally celebrate Waterloo Day, but it was fitting that our guest for lunch at the European Parliament's offices in Westminster today made reference to this military anniversary. Patrick Mercer, Conservative MP for Newark and Retford, served for 25 years in the [...]

Do the Wintertons owe the taxpayer £40,000?

There seems to be a revolving tombola of Tory sleaze at the moment - one day it's Spelman, then it's Dover...Chichester....Conway...and today, the Wintertons. In February the story broke about them claiming £21K a year on parliamentary expenses to pay rent to a family trust of which they are the trustees and their children are the beneficiaries. This was after they had paid the mortgage from

Shock, horror, surprise: I bet you weren't expecting this

Well, who'd have thought it? Yet another story involving Conservative Parliamentarians and mis-use of expenses: Two Tory MPs, Sir Nicholas Winterton and his wife Ann, were in "unequivocal" breach of Parliamentary rules by claiming over £165,000 in rent on a property which they had bought outright, MPs have concluded. The Wintertons' family "benefited directly from the payment [...]

Botanic Garden

Tonight's 'Evening Telegraph' carries confirmation that the University of Dundee today confirmed it is considering a proposal from a local developer in relation to the Botanic Garden. Speaking with the Tele earlier, I reiterated that I will continue to strongly oppose any suggestion of selling off parts of the Botanic Garden to a developer, which I know would also be strongly opposed by the local community. It should be stressed that, in terms of the Local Plan Review 2005, the whole Botanic Garden is Protected Open Space, and I strongly support its protected status. I am continuing to liaise closely ...

Planning application in Hook Road

For those of you who follow planning applications, you may be interested to hear the latest status of 268 Hook Road. Last October South of the Borough Neighbourhood Committee turned down an application to build eight flats on this site. The developers appealed to the Planning Inspector, but their appeal was turned down last week. According to the Council website, a new...

Guardian blog 18 June

My latest Guardian blog, covering 42 days, campaigning in Henley, and access to Kings Cross station is now available here.

A lucky escape for the piscine nation, methinks

'I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.' George W. Bush, Saginaw, Michigan, 29 September 2000

No local councillors on Old Bexley & Sidcup Tory shortlist

According to Bexley Tory councillor Melvin Seymour in the comments on Conservativehome: '...no Bexley Councillor has been deemed good enought to be chosen for the final selection panel' Now, this does surprise me. Whatever I may think of the local Tories policies, they did a pretty impressive job on delivering votes for Boris. I am not going to plump up any egos, and to be fair I don't know the

Vote at 16 and burnley a&e

The youth of Britain are being deprived of the Vote. They can do so much at 16 but yet do not get the right to Vote. I am in full packing of campaigns to get the Voting and Age for being a candidate to 16. Let's look at it like this at 16 you can join the army and fight for your country so why aren't the government letting the 16 year old have the Vote. If these people are allowed to go out and fight for the British Army then the 16+ should be given the Vote. Any MP's ...

42 day by-election called, Labour refuses to stand

The date for the '42 day by-election' has been set for 10 July after David Davis resignation from the House of Commons.

Farmers and animal rights welfare campaigners - who can you trust?

Today's Independent has, as its front page exclusive, a report on abuses in the British pig industry. There are some pretty gruesome pictures, taken by Animal Aid activists, which imply that senior members of the British Pig Executive (BPEX), the industry's governing body, are in breach of their animal welfare obligations. There is always a risk, when images like these are circulated, that they

Missing Balls Round

Let's play spot the difference: Juries Elections Opinion Polls So, which is the odd one out, and why? I can think of three answers. Want a clue? It involves some people who are more clueless by the day. It involves some people who are frightened of their own shadows. It involves some people who are all mouth and no trousers. ... ... ... Thought about it? All ready with your answer? And, of course, it was a trick question. There are three reasons why one of these is the odd one out, but in each case it's the same one. ...

Labour want to axe your Post Offices

{Campaigners outside Northtown Post Office} The Government has decided to axe another 2,500 Post Offices, and yesterday we learned which Post Offices are facing closure in Buckinghamshire. They include: North Town, Totteridge Road, High Wycombe (pictured above) Loudwater, Station Road, High Wycombe Hazlemere Crossroads, High Wycombe Desborough Road, High Wycombe Wycombe Lane, Wooburn Green The Parade, Bourne End Parliamentary Spokesman, Steve Guy said Post Offices are the lifeblood of communities in both rural and urban areas, particularly when they are combined with other services, such as the local shop. When the local post office closes other services often follow suit, ...

Another mom on the run

This is not a case I know about. (see link) A woman fled her Wearside home with her five daughters because she found out they were to be taken into care. If, however, our care system was supportive and didn't just hammer families you would not have moms (and dads) going on the run so often. In the 2nd reading debate people talked about how the system worked in other countries where the care

Zim

You know what's disturbing? Finding out that someone who does the same job as you has been brutally murdered for it. Crazy as it may sound, I'm really against people getting killed for giving out leaflets. I'm against other people getting horribly killed of course - it largely goes without saying - but as I've found to be the case with both everyone else and myself, we just simply care more when there are similarities between ourselves and the victims. We tend to do so in an unspoken way, though - witness the stories about Mugabe's initial land grab, back ...

Changing religions

The Cynical Dragon draws attention to the fact that some media outlets believe that they have an easy answer as to why the Presiding Officer was so outraged at the visit of the Israeli Ambassador to the Assembly next week. Israeli National News for example (since corrected) reports thus: Dafydd Elis-Thomas, the Muslim speaker of the Welsh Assembly, said he will boycott a meeting with Ron Prosor, the Israeli Ambassador to Britain. He explained that Israel has failed 'to meet its international obligations to the Palestinian people) 'Prosor said he is not changing his plans for the meeting that was ...

Opinion: Magna culpa

The next person to mention in my presence: Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, or the "insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms," is surely going to regret it. I have never been more heartily sick and tired of the whole "civil liberties" industry following last week's events where, after an admittedly unwelcome measure was [...]

Friends of Zimbabwe

This charity helps do all it can to ensure Zimbabwean voters in the Presidential run-off can vote free from violent pressure. Click the picture to find out more and donate.

Plaid's dilemma

One of the great imponderables of the One Wales Government has always been how Plaid Cymru as a party will react to having to make difficult decisions. This is especially so on issues like the NHS where they have always taken an oppositionist and opportunistic stance. Plaid Cymru Chair and wannabe AM for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, John Dixon, provides part of the answer in his latest blog post. In essence he concludes that the Labour-Plaid Cymru proposals for re-organising the health service are a pile of dirt and not worth the paper they are written on. I may ...

Freedom! Liberty! CCTV...oh...erm...

Settling down to the usual cacophony of police sirens and BBC Parliament whilst reading about Gordon Brown's speech on civil liberties to the IPPR thinktank, has, not surprisingly, made my thoughts turn to crime....No, don't worry, I haven't decided to leave the straight and narrow path of being a shining example of good citizenship, but am pondering the tough nature of the crime/liberty debate. Anyone who has had the misfortune of reading 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood will know that (oh, alright it's an ok read) if you take Gordon's argument to its logical conclusion those considered vulnerable and ...

Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #69

Welcome to the 69th - no jokes, please - of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (8th-15th June), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed. Let's get straight down to it - ooh-er, obviously - in descending order of [...]

Why does it matter how many women are in politics?

{Downing Street road sign} Last weekend I talked at a conference about empowering women to play more active roles in different countries to help bring peace and to take part in democratic processes. There's no doubt that we're relatively lucky in the UK compared with many - in fact most - other countries around the world in terms of how women are treated by men and by society's structures. There is though work to be done, and as one of the thoughts I think lurking at the back of the minds of some people I talk to is 'women have ...

Back in the saddle - or not

Back from my great cycle trip to Mulheim with the Darlington Town Twinning group (of which more later), and having needed another week to catch up with everything at home and at work, I'm back in the blogosphere. And tonight, having got the bug, I'll be back in the saddle (unless it's pouring with rain) taking part in a gentle evening ride out to Walworth as part of Darlington Cycling Week. At

The Buckie Stops Here

Well...err...actually probably not. What is more likely may well be booze drives in 4x4s to Cumbria or Northumberland. Teenagers laughing outside supermarkets as they drink their illegally gained Buckfast Tonic wine incredulous as the middle classes have to queue twice to get their more expensive Chardonnay or Whisky to enjoy with or after their meal. Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon laid out the SNP

Doctor Who - Midnight

It was a Rusty ep. I liked it. You can all hate me now.

Time for a quick one

Having blogged yesterday about the Scottish Government's boozy gimmicks, I wish to commend this article by Rowenna Davis in The Guardian. Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph is also worth reading on the subject.

Do Gay Men Have a Poor Sense of Direction?

Scientific research rarely makes me laugh out loud, but the findings from work done by Ivanca Savic and Per Linstrom of the Stockholm Brain Institute in Sweden (published yesterday in the American journal, 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences') have led to the conclusion that heterosexual women and gay men have symmeticral brains, whereas heterosexual men and [...]

Gnats latest wheeze - get killed in battle at 18 but can't buy a tin of beer until 21

Oh aye, that'll be their famous joined up thinking at it's best then. What a fucking stupid idea from a fucking stupid party. This proposal is the sort of shite that we would expect from the weirder outposts of UKIP and illiberal mobs of that ilk. If they stopped for a moment to think about the issue they would drop this lunacy and possibly, if they had the brainpower to work it out, start effectively enforcing the laws which currently exist. Ditch this cobblers now.

Day 2620: Monsieur Davis David - C'est Magnifiqué... Mais ce n'est pas le politics!

Thursday: Into the Valley of Death (or at least Newspaper Ridicule) rode the brave Davis David, Conservatory Shadow Home Secretary... sorry FORMER Conservatory Shadow Home Secretary, bold Mr Balloon waited all of NO seconds to give Mr David his full support and REPLACE him. But this really WAS something from a different and bygone age. A politician fighting a by-election to raise a point of principle? Unheard of! No wonder this cynical, corrupt and bankrupt Government doesn't know what to make of it! Of course it would have been more USEFUL for the thirty-six Labour rebels to resign THEIR seats! ...

Day 2619: Now we know the cost of terrorism - one billion quid...pro quo

Wednesday: Forty-two days without charge: Mr Frown almost brought down his OWN Government to do it and only BRIBERY and BULLYING secured it. Ms Jacqui Spliff, the Hopeless Secretary, spoke out: 'Faced with a crucial decision on the safety and protection of the British public, they have collapsed into total disarray on what is their first big policy test since they have come under greater scrutiny.' Mr David 'Security' Blanket added: 'This is childish and immature and it is not worthy of a major political party to engage in such theatre.' Oh, hang on, were they talking about the CONSERVATORIES?!?! ...

Wednesday 18th June 2008

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