It was the opening informal dinner for the Billingham International Folklore Festival tonight, and what an occasion! If you weren't planning to come to Billingham then I suggest you do - come for the Festival that is on till next Saturday. I took loads of pictures and there won't be room for them all on the Mayor's Blog as the Council site can only take 6 at a time, so here they... 
I am watching a BBC programme about its own situation comedy Yes, Minister. Naturally they have featured the embarrassing sketch that Mrs Thatcher forced the cast to accompany her in at an awards ceremony. It featured the Iron Lady saying: Yes. It's all very simple. I want you to abolish economists.Well the old girl may be having her way after all. The BBC reports: Only three economics teachers were trained on teacher training courses in the whole of England last year, shows a study of students entering teaching. The report's author, Professor Alan Smithers, warns that economics risks 'dying out' ...
Today marks the first birthday of my little friend Magnus. He is a wonderful, curious, energetic, happy little boy. He brings so much joy to his parents' lives, and it's obvious how much he is loved by all of his family. So, happy birthday, Magnus. You won't remember today, but those of us who love you will:-)
A couple of days ago I was sitting in the sun in Ludlow, drinking Robinsons cider and reading the Spectator. I recommend Matthew Parris's A-Z of scare stories: Bird Flu. It is not so long since the government's chief medical officer said the arrival here of a pandemic was not a matter of whether but when. Since then, bird flu has dropped from the news.And the cider.
Here's a question to really test your knowledge of fairly obscure politicians:- Which serving, democratically elected, Commonwealth Premier had previously spent time in jail after being convicted of heroin trafficking? Unhelpful clue: his party has the initials YP. 
Via the wonderful Jo Christie-Smith comes this piece in the Guardian about how far women's rights, and expectations of equal treatment, are under threat in the UK today. It's titled 'Now, the backlash' so I find it interesting that the title of the web page in my browser reads 'Kira Cochrane on the apparent backlash against feminism'. Want to distance yourself from her sentiment any more, Guardian? I know, I'm a barrel of laughs tonight, aren't I? Forgive me, I've spent much of today up to my elbows in triangle sandwiches, balloons and strange children, I'm a bit over-wrought. It's ...
I have to give credit to the person whose message to Radio Scotland was read out just before 6 tonight. Unfortunately, I didn't get their name. However they asked the question that if Scotland got its independence, would its currency be called teh Gloat? The old ones are always the best:-)
The Kevin Bishop Show: it's a new comedy sketch show in the slot between Big Brother shows on Channel Four on Fridays. I.. I really can't handle it. I was already on the verge of tears when he did 'Sophie's Choice, the Musical' as a skit. When he followed it up with 'The Guantanamo Bay Playset', it placed me into quite a real state of emotional distress. Is ANYONE finding that funny? I'm terrified someone will say yes, it will make me question humanity so deeply.
The unfunded, equipment lacking, small UN/AU mission is being threatened by Sudan. In their anger about the idea of the President being indicted, they have said they cannot be held responsible for the troops' well being. Apparently their not threatening to expel troops. Even so these are dangerous words and the international community must take it seriously. With words like this it's even less likely that African nations will send more troops to Darfur, the mission only has 9,000 soldiers and is supposed to have 26,000! We shouldn't then decide not to take action against the President, but we should ...
Cicero's Songs discusses the aftermath of the Glasgow East by-election: the [general] election that must take place before May 2010 is now a point of maximum danger. Any result where the SNP match at Westminster their previous result at Holyrood while the Conservatives gain a landslide in the rest of the UK has the potential for a constitutional crisis that could see the end of the United Kingdom.I am sure this is right, but I am surprised (despite my mixed Scottish and English ancestry) at how little emotional attraction the Union has for me. I suspect I am not alone ...
We recently acquired two chairs made by a cross eyed Sri Lankan odd job man about a hundred years ago. I kid you not - one of my ancestors by marriage was in the colonial service. Anyway, one of them fell apart this morning when my son sat on it, so I spent the morning putting it back together again. As it's an heirloom its emotional value is immense. Its practical value is probably negative; I'd have been better off going to Ikea (yes, I said Ikea) and getting a flatpack replacement. Anyway in the course of trying to get ...
For those of us who lived politically through the Thatcher years, it's hard to realise that younger souls see the Iron Lady as history. This afternoon, the news editor of Gaydar Radio, Joanne Oatts, came round to interview me for a programme she is making about Britain's only female Prime Minister. My début as a political candidate was in the first [...]
One: The SNP gave Brown his worst kicking yet in Glasgow East. The SNP exceeded my expectations - I thought their relatively low-key candidate would be unable to repeat the Glasgow successes of Sillars and Margot, and would fall short by a few hundred. South of the border, Liberal Democrat campaigners in places like Norwich, Watford and St Albans will be encouraged by the shrinking Labour vote. Glasgow East is an area built by Labour - indeed by old Labour. Looking around them, voters would have been mad to vote Labour again. Two: The UK economy has continued to slow. ...
This is why I am a feminist and why I am going to keep going, even when it feels like we are wading through treacle.
Firstly, after a week of detailed discussions within the City Council, I am pleased to report significant progress towards ensuring the 72 bus service continues. After a meeting with the Chief Executive of the City Council today, I spoke again with the Operations Manager at Stagecoach Strathtay, and thereafter over 50 phone calls to residents who either attended the recent meeting at the Paton's Lane Sheltered Lounge about the future of the bus service or contacted me about the matter. Over 50 calls took ages (hours to be exact!) but residents are very pleased at the progress. Here's the news ...
Simply because I have just received one of them, here are some pictures of Liberal Democrats around the region campaigning against post office closures. I spent a day with Simon Wright in Norwich, helping out with his campaign against the closure of New Costessey Post Office. Simon has organised a great community campaign. More than 1500 residents have signed a petition against closure, and many many houses display a poster supporting the campaign. With Simon and other helpers, I was able to spend some time thanking people who had signed the petition, and letting them know the next steps in ...
The most serious incident here involved the release of 74 Kilos of uranium (about the weight of Nicolas Sarkozy, I would guess). But there have been a number of other accidents, including one this Wednesday in which 100 workers were contaminated. One of the lesser-known activities of the European Commission is to inspect civil nuclear installations. If I were an MEP, I would want to know when EU inspectors had last been to Tricastin, what they had found there, and whether these findings had been communicated to the appropriate bodies in France. I would want to be in a position ...
My journey to Wales this afternoon has given me the chance to read a load of newspapers, some I paid for and others were left lying around - I'll leave you to guess which. The Glasgow East bye-election coming too late for most of them, prominence has been given to the Mosley judgement and, surprise, surprise, there is almost total unanimity amnogst the commentators. As a Liberal, I have to support Mosley's assertion that what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their own dungeon is up to them - and personally I'd rather not know about it. ...
If you are a registered member of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum - and any paid-up party member is welcome to join - then you now have the opportunity to make your views known on a range of current issues in our August members' survey. Topics we are asking your opinion on include: - the party's [...]
Like Iain Dale has just started a guest blogs system over the summer i am going to as well. If you want to post for me email me your post with the subject 'Guest Blogs' and i will use it on the blog with your name. Please remember that i may not use all blogs submitted to me and please make the posts decent as if you fail to do that i will not display the post. Please email me at irfanahmed91@gmail.com with your post and the subject 'Guest Blogs' Hope to be displaying your posts very soon!
Nick Clegg is saying that the status of the economy is to unstable to hold a General Election i don't know the thoughts he has behind the comment he has made but this is what i believe he means. With the economy being so unstable and people not being able to pay bills with the credit crunch hitting every one's pockets Nick Clegg doesn't want the Prime Minister to call a General Election as he thinks like i do that if the Prime Minister was to call a general election people wont look at party policies or candidate abilities they ...
Well here i should really be writing a long article on what has been happening in the new town council that was set up in May 2008 but the problem is they isn't nothing to talk about the council. The council only has a meeting once a month and yet that is too long for councillor's like Sajid Ali who say that the meeting is too long and he spends most the time in the meeting watching the clock for the meeting to finish and its only an hour. Then the council doesn't even till now know what it can ...
Jeff had accused me of sour grapes* even masking my true feelings in humour about last night's result in Glasgow East because I posted this. Well all I can say it is easy to be a winner, not so easy to be a good winner (last night we didn't see one IMHO), but hardest of all is to be totally blown away by things going far worse than you anticipated. However, what I have done all day has been
Along with the Director of TACTRAN, Eric Guthrie, I appeared (in my capacity as TACTRAN Chair) on Tay AM's Business Matters programme last night. You can here it by clicking 'play' below:
Whilst the inquest into Glasgow East gets underway (and it shouldn't take long), I'm now in Cheshire heading for an evening meeting in Farndon, near the Welsh border. Ros is already there, having travelled up from London this afternoon. I have to say that all of this campaigning continues to be very educational, and I hope to be able to apply it to the work I do deep in the heart of the party 
Apparently, according to this BBC headline, Gordon Brown thinks Labour need a morale boost. I sounds like some sort of dreadful 'team building' exercise. It makes me wonder if he will be taking them paint balling or go-karting. Can you imagine an evening out that would be worse than going ten pin bowlng with Gordon Brown trying to boost your morale ?
There have been a few good results for British tennis this week: Andy Murray is through to the quarter finals in Toronto where he'll take on Novak Djokovic and some of the British women have posted good wins too. But although I'm hoping to spend a day at the tennis soon, it is of course not long now til the start of the football season. I do try to avoid wasting too much time reading about transfer rumours, but as August 16 draws closer it's hard not to get excited - even if usually most of them come to nothing. ...
Norwich City Manager Glenn Roeder and his Assistant Lee Clark have been fined £1000 and £500 because of an incident on the touchline at the end of a match last year. Just to fill you in on what the incident was, in the 94th minute of the match (a match which the referee had said there should only by three minutes of extra time - do the maths !), he awarded Bristol City a free kick for a handball. It was obvious to everyone in the ground that the handball was actually committed by a Bristol City player. The radio ...
If so, you might want to know that the Western Morning News - the south-west's regional newspaper - is holding a readers' Q&A event with David Cameron in Cornwall next week. Do you have a question for Dave? Perhaps: "What did you really think when David Davis told you he was resigning?" Or "How are [...]
I have written before about the Student Loans Company and the completely useless way they marry up data about people and the length of time it takes. But this month they have provided further evidence that they are not fit for purpose. I knew from my tax records that I had paid up my student loan in full, so sent them my P60 so that they small amount they deduct each month would cease. I asked them to deal with this as a matter of urgency as I did not want further payments deducted from my wages. Sadly, they took ...
Howdy. OneHourAhead is now posting from the other side of the Atlantic instead of the other side of the North Sea so forgive me for being slightly late on the draw on any breaking news. I will however at least have a ringside seat for one of the most exciting political races in recent history. I am in a democratic city in a republican state in the south so things could get interesting.
Israel is continuing to build new settlements in the West Bank with new plans coming in. This is despite the International Community not supporting them. Israel can't be serious about peace talks. If they were serious they would be ready for the two state solution and wouldn't be building more settlements. Although David Milliband may be 'expressing dismay', no World leader is properly standing up against Israel. The settlements will only make peace harder.
People are amazing. Usually in good ways, but sometimes in shockingly bad ones. Hat-tip to Rachel from North London for the link.
Figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats show that North Yorkshire County Council has made severe cutbacks in maintaining the county's public footpaths. The Conservative-run council spent only £280k on maintaining the network last year, compared with £505k in 2005/6. The Council now employs 22 full-time equivalent staff on public rights-of-way, compared with 28 in 2005/6. Even more worryingly, performance indicators show that only 65% of footpaths are now considered easy to use by walkers, compared with 75% last year. The Ramblers' Association has also expressed concern at the reduction in resources for footpath work. Lib Dem Councillor Keith Barnes (Harrogate ...
I've had to knock comments off for a while. I've had a huge volume of Spam comments which take an age to go through. Hopefully I will figure out how to block them and then can put comments back on properly. If you need to contact me personally about an issue please e mail me directly at paula.keaveney@liverpool.gov.uk.
I sometimes wonder why people bother getting elected as a councillor. There are several individuals who I have never heard speak at a single meeting. I was in a very small meeting with one of these today - no press, no public just a small meeting discussing personnel issues. And yet despite being asked for an opinion, this individual decided to say nothing. Now we are not all the most chatty of creatures, but I do wonder about the value of people who seem to think all they need to do is sit with their party and put their hands ...
The Valley Community Theatre - on Childwall Valley Road in Netherley - has a production on next week at which admission is free. Details below. AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER? - Weaves stories and testimony from BME communities of North Staffordshire with historical and contemporary slave stories in this powerful and dynamic piece. Why did the trans-Atlantic slave trade take so long to destroy? What happened to the families forced from their homelands? What are the modern forms of slavery? Monday 28th July Tuesday 29th July Doors: 7pm Show Starts: 7.30pm Box Office: 0151 488 0364, Mobile: ...
Another by-election, another Labour humiliation- so far, so unsurprising. That this time it was the SNP, rather than the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats delivering the shock may seem of only passing significance. After all, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the SNP were riding high, winning the Hamilton by-election in 1967 before gaining 11 MPs in the October 1974 election. Yet in the end the Scotland Act of 1979 was defeated and the SNP fell back to only two seats in the subsequent 1979 general election. However, my fears for the very future of my country are growing. In ...
...and working in journalism*, and the police, the army and the courts and more or less anywhere. And I mean In positions of power not just support. This is an excellent article by Linda Grant on Comment is Free. She is talking about her work in investigating claims of mass rape in Bosnia during the Balkans Conflict. She identifies it was the first time that rape was generally recognised as a weapon of war at the same time that the war was going on and that it was women being involved that made that happen: She says: "What was different ...
There are three men in the centre of developing stories today. If we're meant to be in the silly season, then someone should tell Max Mosely, Barak Obama or Gordon Brown - none of whom are allowing the newspapers to get distracted by the trivial traditional summer fayre.The ramifications from Mosely's High Court case, Obama's Berlin speech and Brown's electoral loss are barely yet being played out in the papers. These are stories that will continue to play out next week and beyond.For the sake of brevity though here are a few of the immediate reactions to the Glasgow result:Graham ...
... or is this morning's announcement by EDF Energy of swinging price increases (22% for gas, 17% for electricity) connected to yesterday's news that they and Centrica are close to final agreement to buy UK nuclear firm British Energy in which the Government has a big stake? Note: EDF Energy is the UK subsidiary of Electricite de France - the French state-owned nuclear utility which has 58 nuclear power stations in France. In the UK it has acquired SEEBOARD (formerly South Eastern Electricity Board), London Energy (formerly London Electricity Board), and SWEB Energy. The attraction of British Energy is said ...
I start this piece from a first class seat on a Virgin Pendolino en route to Glasgow Central. The breakfast was free, as was lunch plus two quite decent glasses of wine. Did I mention the free copy of The Times? My fare? £63. Not bad, eh? Buying rail tickets is fun, at least if you can combine patience with a sense of experimentation. Quite often, rail companies, like airlines, have a curious
Good news that the campaign to get the USA to lift the visa ban on people with HIV has paid off. And congratulations to our local MEP Sarah Ludford for her role in making it happen. It's a great example of how the EU can work to defend ordinary people's rights against unfair government or [...]
At Wednesday's Council meeting, the Lib Dems tabled an amendment to a Council motion on housing numbers, demanding that the Council investigate taking legal action if the Secretary of State doesn't reduce the housing numbers destined for South Gloucestershire. The number of homes that would have to be built each year is highly unrealistic but if the targets are not met there is a real danger that developers will be able to win appeals to build on land not earmarked by the Council for development. Another concern is that the minister's recommendations would not ensure that the infrastructure needed to ...
South Gloucestershire Council has agreed to look into erecting a wind turbine on land adjacent to the new Council offices on Badminton Road. If installed, it would provide part of the power needed for the offices.
Posted by Chris: Went into WH Smith in Redcar High Street today to buy a permanent marker to put the numbers on the new ducks we bought for tomorrow's North Riding Duck Race. They had a Paper Mate W10 at £4.99. I thought that was a little steep so I went across to Wollies to see what they had. I bought the exact same Paper Mate W10 for 99p! I went back to WH Smith because I have gift tokens that I got from my kids for my birthday and complained about the price of the maker pen. I asked ...
Boston BC, Coastal Con 344 (30.9; -1.6) Boston Bypass Independent Party 306 (27.5; -32.9) LD Ossy Snell 213 (19.1; +19.1) BNP 119 (10.7; +10.7) UKIP 88 (7.9; +0.7) Lab 44 (3.9; +3.9) Majority 38 Turnout 37.4% Con gain from Boston Bypass Independent Party Percentage change is since May 2007 City of Westminster LBC, Church Street Con 955 (53.6; +24.5) Lab 652 (36.6; -3.0) LD Martin Thompson 176 (
Barack Obama's made a speech in Berlin yesterday, the text is below. It is however better to watch/listen to it at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/berlinvideo/
Barack Obama mad a speech in Berlin yesterday, below is the text - but it's better to watch/listen - you can at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/berlinvideo/
On the 26th May 1995 Bill Gates issued a memo to Microsoft executives. This memo, which has become famous as the 'Internet Tidal Wave' memo, set out how this hugely successful company had made a major mistake. This mistake was the failure to recognise how important the Internet was. The memo went on to identified Netscape, with their Netscape Navigator web browser, as a major competitor to
I'm reading the reaction to the by-election with interest. Yes, I know it's not Islington, but Richard's a Glaswegian-in-exile. And although he spent most of his youth in Shawlands on the south side, they did have a few years in Shettleston in Glasgow East. He felt Deborah Orr's profile hit the right note, disillusion with [...]
In response to the list of questions which I sent to each of the three leadership contenders for the Scottish Lib Dems, I've now had a reply from Tavish Scott. This is what he has to say: 1) What is your vision for a liberal Scotland? It is hard to better the vision set out in the preamble to the party's constitution with its call for a fair, free and open society. I want to see a Scotland where power is devolved to the lowest practicable level, where nobody lives in poverty, and where the rich diversity of people who ...
I'd like to express my condolences to the family of Corporal Jason Barnes, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers who sadly was killed in Helmand, Afghanistan earlier this week. As the brother of another serving REME soldier out there I am thinking of you at this time.
Well, not quite. Penelope Wilton I could respect. It is interesting to see Harriet Harperson taking on the role of Gordon Brown while he's away. I make no secret of my disdain for her but reading an article about her new role it occured to me that, if I was a panicky Labour MP looking for an alternative to Gordon I might not be persuaded by the questionable charms of evasive Jack Straw, clever but insipid David Miliband or the impossibly unlikeable Ed Balls. I might even question the prospects of Alan Johnson, the best of a bad bunch. However, ...
Nick Perry, Lib Dem parliamentary campaigner for Hastings & Rye, and Conquest campaigner Margaret Williams met with hospital bosses on Friday 18 July to lobby for changes to the parking charges regime at the Conquest.On the back of their recent petition, Nick and Margaret made clear to Irene Dibben (Chair of the Board) and David Philliskirk (Director of [...]
BBC London did a piece on Camden's recent recycling audit which you can see here. There's a key point that was wrong in the report. Commingling - mixing all our recycling up together and then trying to separate it later - is more "efficient" in that it allows us to collect more recycling in one truck and therefore leads to fewer truck movements. We assume commingling means residents recycle more but we actually have no evidence of this because we started collecting plastic bottles and cardboard when we introduced commingling in April 2006 which is probably a big part of ...
'LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - UK energy supplier EDF Energy has raised its power prices by 17 percent and its gas prices by 22 percent, effective immediately, the company said on Friday.'Ouch. If Brown had woke up to a morose morning, fragile and hungover from the catastrophe of Glasgow, EDF have just started rapping him on the head. He has to say something better than business as usual and 'by-elections come and by-elections go'. He won't. Guess what, PMs come and go too.
The Honourable Lady Mark's efforts notwithstanding, we lost our deposit. This is unsurprising, given that (aside from the question of independence) the SNP are pretty much a clone of us, even down to party colours. It's a bit worrying to be beaten by the Tories in Scotland, which is a bit like losing to the BNP in Brixton, but hopefully the fact that they have lost their third safest seat in Scotland will send a message to New Labour. How much longer can Gordon bury his head in the sand? The reason main for the Oh shit in the title, ...
Strolling down Argyle Street on a sunny Friday morning, it would be fair to say that coming fourth and losing our deposit doesn't look good. This could be because it isn't. That said, it's hard to see what positives we could have drawn from any viable result that would have resonated beyond the political anoraks. Let the Conservatives brag about overtaking us - their vote fell, after all, and we
Last night's stunning SNP victory in Glasgow East caps one of the worst six months for the Labour party in at least 25 years. Policy gaffes and u-turns; a deeply unpopular leader; and catastrophic election defeats across the country - it doesn't get much worse than this. The time has now passed when the question [...]
David Cameron's bike has surfaced on ebay! Seller barafranca0's item description: 'Well this bike is not *exactly* new but it is *nearly* new because it has only been used for a couple of photo-opportunities. It is BIG and BLUE and despite looking quite well-balenced [sic] it leans oddly to the right. It would suit a real commuter right down to the ground. I want to sell it because It 'does not feel right' I picked it up outside of Tesco. It comes complete with a lock (locked). Hardly a scratch on it to be honest. Buyer should collect, directions to ...
Well, let's not pretend it was a great result: losing three-quarters of your support is rarely likely to cheer a party up. But it would be equally silly to read anything of great significance into it, either. As I pointed out yesterday, in the 1999 Hamilton South by-election the Lib Dems trailed in a pretty [...]
I keep seeing concerned Facebook messages and letters to Lib Dem News about the ambition set out by Nick Clegg to lower taxes. I've seen the message from the Beveridge Group about this, and Richard Grayson is right that it is a policy shift. I think I'm on the other side, though. I don't think, and I don't think the Lib Dem pre-manifesto implies, that we should give any less priority to public services. The trouble with simply accepting Gordon Brown's spending levels as they are, without any demur, is that: 1. We have to accept without question his view ...
Glasgow East we know about now. Terrible news for Labour, good news for the SNP and bad news for Gordon Brown. But any attempts to pass this off as a Scottish phenomenon should be ignored when you look at the result from a key by-election in Westminster. Labour, featuring ex Blur drummer Dave Rowntree as their candidate, lost the previously solid Labour Church Street Ward by 202 votes. It is sometimes possible for ruling parties nationally to pick off council seats in areas which are controlled by another party (in Westminster's case the Tories), but when Labour are losing solid ...
Bycle theft is going down. But its not being helped by careless cyclists who fail to take basic precautions like locking their bike to fixed/unmoveable objects. So I've no sympathy for Davey Cameron who apparently "locked" his bike to a 60cm bollard. Idiot. And he wants to be Prime Minister? If that's his concept of security, then heaven help us!
Here's a prediction. I think Gordon Brown is going to cancel his holiday with the family in Southwold (or only join them for a token day trip). Just like last year when he only spent a few hours away from his desk before rushing back to deal with foot and mouth (remember those heady days when he seemed to do things well?), I predict that he won't be able to face leaving the office in the aftermath of Glasgow East. Of course, exactly what he needs to do is get away and relax a bit. But I don't think he ...
In light of the recent news that Curtis Fine Papers, based in Guardbridge, have had to call in the administrators with the loss of up to 260 jobs, North East Fife Parliamentarians Sir Menzies Campbell MP and Iain Smith MSP have issued the following statement. "This is a devastating blow for Guardbridge and the local economy the paper mill has been a major employer for over 100 years and it is deeply concerning that 180 jobs have been lost with immediate effect and another 80 threatened. "We have contacted John Swinney's Office to ask for an urgent meeting with the ...
Well in the first post i did about his bike being stolen from outside Tesco i said that we might see it on eBay well now its available to buy of eBay so people get bidding. The bidding started at approximately £10 and is now at £1,020.00 with 21 Bidders who have placed bids for the bike. Do you think Brown has placed a bid for it so he can ride out of Downing Street after he hopefully calls a General Election by the end of this year and looses it!
Well the SNP has won the Glasgow East seat which was the safest seat in Scotland according to some people for the Labour Party but it isn't anymore. Well now every one needs to look at the future of the Labour Party and the Future of Gordon Brown. He has now lost in three By Election's from a Parliamentary seats. Now He and the Labour Party need to decide what they want to do next. David Cameron is asking the Prime Minister to call a General Election he isn't the only person who wants the Prime Minister to call a ...
Am listening to the Woman's Hour item on black fathers... Has anyone actually done a study on white fathers of similar demographics? Because I bet the rate of absentee fathers has much more to do with poverty than race, just like the prospects of your child have much more to do with money than whether or not you are married. We all know that single mothers are more likely to be poor, after all... Just a thought.
The Liberal Democrats campaign, led by John Hannon, to get the road humps in Larkswood Road made less fierce has succeeded. John's survey in the Kirkleatham Ward Focus showed that 72% of residents actually wanted them removed altogether and only 3% wanted them to stay. Redcar & Cleveland Council have issued the following statement today: Redcar and Cleveland Council is ready to start work on a traffic calming scheme along a busy town road in Redcar - answering residents' concerns over accident fears. The £14,000 scheme, programmed to start on Monday, August 18 and last two weeks, will reverse the ...
After every by-election, they say the same thing. And we get taken in, believing that they might just get better. But we are, of course, cruelly disappointed. To see such a bunch of losers wasting tax-payers' money. Gordon Brown and the Government? The BBC? Actually, both. After every election humiliation, the Government says that it will listen, learn and reflect on the message being sent to it by the voters. We heard it after Ken lost in London, after they lost Crewe and Nantwich, after they humiliatingly lost their deposit in Henley and again this morning after Glasgow. But what ...
See screenshot above - click to enlarge or click here to go directly to the entry on eBay.£1020 is the highest bid so far. It's all totally genuine and kosher, of course. Comes complete with 'The idiot's guide to bike security'. Unfortunately there are no policies in the pannier.
Oh Gordo, what be happening to thine Party, Gordo? Pray, confess it doth seem to be a-falling a-part, no? Not one, no, not like some think, not one crashing by-election defeat yester-evening - but two! For at both extremes of the country didst thou fall last night - a safe seat no more in Glasgow, a safe seat no more in Westminster. I speak, of course, of Dave Rowntree, former drummer of popular beat combo 'Blur'. He stood for you, Gordo, he stood for a 'safe' council seat in Westminster, and yet just like Margaret Curran, he receiv'd a smack ...
It was announced yesterday that major Service Providers in the UK have signed up to an initiative to combat file-sharing. This has given the green light for notices to be sent to people detected as sharing copyright material illegally. It does not yet seem to have settled the issue of whether infringers should have their internet access cut off as has been suggested by some rightsholders organisations. This is my take on the issue - Q. Is it acceptable for SPs to make arrangements with copyright holders organisations to convey messages to people identified as potentially infringing copyright? A. It ...
Following on from Sunday's meme concerning how many of the allegedly top 100 books I have read, would like to read and would not touch with a bargepole, today's Guardian starts another: books that we have started but cannot finish. I have not even picked up any of the five books listed in the on-line version of the article, though I do admit to starting James Joyce's Ulysses twice but not getting past page 100 on either occasion. Also, as I said on Sunday, my bedside table is full of half-finished books but I plan to deal with all of ...
Some time ago the police suggested that David Cameron needed some tips on riding a bike legally. Now it seems he needs some tips in bike security, if not common sense. I learn via Terry Wogan and the Independent that the fellow chained his bike (outside Tesco) to a metre high bollard. So all the thief had to do was lift up the bike and walk off with it. D'oh!
There are few more annoying sights in life than a gloating Scottish nationalist. Apart from, maybe, a room full of them. I was struck by the lack of dignity of their victory celebrations in Glasgow East, with their candidate doing a wee victory dance before the recount had even been declared. It was kind of Rambo come embarrassing middle aged male relative dancing at a wedding. Compare and contrast with the way Willie Rennie reacted when he won the Dunfermline and West Fife by election. Sure, he recognised the political earthquake he had caused, but he did so in a ...
Always bargains to be had on eBay...
It was the 26th safest labour constituency in the UK and the second in Scotland. So what would labour be left with if their was a general election now? Well you can't judge the whole national picture from one by-election but we know Gordon Brown is in a lot of trouble. On our performance, well we faced a horrific squeeze from labour and the SNP. We went from nearly having 12% of the vote in 2005, down to 3.5%, forth just behind the conservatives, who had a small spueeze. Oh and in case you didn't know the SNP won.
According to Welsh Ramblings David Cameron has said that he is overruling some of his party's AMs in Wales and will not be allowing a referendum on a real Parliament for Wales. Lenin Cymru says that the media have failed to report these remarks, preferring instead to concentrate on the Tory Leader's support of a badger cull in Wales and his non-remarks on Alun Cairns and Lord Wyn Roberts' report on devolution. However Lenin Cymru also fails to give a source for these comments and nobody else in the blogosphere or elsewhere seem to have independently picked up on them. ...
A week or more ago the Stockton South Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate, Jaquie Bell, said that she thought the SNP were on track to take Glasgow East from Labour. This wasn't a newspaper pundit looking at statistics, but someone who'd just spent several hours walking the streets delivering Liberal Democrat leaflets. In the early hours of this morning she was proved right. A sliver of a majority
It's one of those great little gems - and is so impressive that my little disposable camera has captured the spirit but not the essence... But here on Rosslyn Hill in the Unitarian Chapel we have a stained glass window from a Wiliam Morris (1834-1896) and Edward Byne Jones (1833-1898) collaboration. The delicacy of the colour, the shades and the way they are deployed is quite magical... http://www.rosslynhillchapel.com/thechapel.html The extent to which Morris and Byrne Jones affected design cannot be under-estimated. But it's also important to understand they way in which they moved at the very top of society. ...
Hearing the results in Glasgow East at some ungodly hour this morning my first thought was of my pal who is a member of the SNP. We had an email exchange a couple of weeks ago and she had been out campaigning. She was genuinely buoyed up, believing they could win. I remembered visiting her and her family a couple of years ago. Her father too is an SNP activist and what struck me about both of them was the enthusiasm with which they talked about their party. They conveyed a real sense of commitment to and belief in everything ...
The result: SNP 11,277 43.1% (+26.1%) Labour 10,912 41.7% (-19.0) Conservative 1,639 6.3% (-0.6) Liberal Democrat 915 3.5% (-8.3) Majority 365 1.4% Turnout 42.3% (-6.0)
So Labour have managed to lose their third safest seat last night in Glasgow East. The full result was:
Yes I'll admit it and go and collect my anorak now, I was there to the bitter end last night. That was when Newsnight Scotland finally deemed it time to show highlights of the campaign to round off conference and take the camera of Nicola's increasingly smug 'I know something you don't' face. All through the coverage all the politicians in the studio Nicola, Douglas 'I'll defend my sister'
Their third safest Westminster seat. With Parliament being in recess the impact will not be as big as it could be. Gordon Brown can look forward to a mildly calm summer with no by-elections up and coming. Reflection, and perhaps a decision to hold a general election just after conference season this autumn. Conference should be interesting, with many possible contenders lining up to make big speeches just in case anything happens and Brown gets pushed onto a sword. As Nicola Sturgeon MSP pointed out, this is the first by-election in history between two competing governments. Crewe and Nantwich was ...
He's a supremely clever political operator, so Barack Obama obviously realises that his German 'Obamamania' pictures are a mixed blessing. Yes, they neutralise any thoughts that he might not be able to hack it on the world stage, if elected President. But it has to be asked: how do pictures of adoring Germans go down in Clark County, Ohio? Not well I suspect. Headlines such as: Der Spiegel
A swing of 22.54% from Labour to SNP in Glasgow East. Not good news for Mr Brown, made the more humiliating by an expectation that his party might just win the by-election. The voters of Glasgow East may well have done Labour and Gordon Brown a favour. When a horse is irrevocably injured, someone has to humanely put it out of its misery.
Why is Kosovo doing so badly, asks Jeremy Harding in the LRB. The statistics he quotes paint a bleak picture of the land he describes as an EU/UN protectorate Despite the creation of a small millionaire class, 45 per cent of its inhabitants are below the poverty level (unable to meet basic needs). Around 15 per cent live in extreme poverty, earning less than a euro a day. Most of Kosovo's poor are supported by networks of extended family and clan, more important by far than the structures of organised politics or religion: a majority of Albanians in Kosovo are ...
The Liberal Democrats have won the Darley Ward by-election in Derby tonight, taking back a seat that they had held until the outgoing councillor became an Independent. I am so pleased for them, as this was yet another tough by-election under difficult circumstances. The previous councillor Wendy Harbon had been suspended and then thrown out of [...]
It is the time of a by-eleciton evening when there is no result and to fill in the time, politicians and commentators are speculating about the result and the consequences were the speculation to turn out to be accurate. The speculation in this instance is about whether or not Brown will go if the SNP win the seat from Labour. I have said on a number of occasions on this blog that I do not
Alright, I've done some odd things in my political life but I find myself somewhere on the edge of Glasgow holding an eight foot long pole with a hooky thing on one end, called a lopper by the local cognescenti. Yes, I know, I'm not actually using it just now but you know what I mean. A feature of campaigning north of the border is signboards attached to lampposts. The catch is that they have to
The Democratic candidate for President addresses a crowd of 100,000, 200,000, 1,000,000 who-knows-how-many? in the German capital city. All 25 minutes are here for your viewing delectation: (Actually it's not one of his better speeches).
Monday: First: Big thank yous to Ms Helen Duffet for organising this Interview. You see, you don't need to be an Elephant of INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION to organise one; any ordinary MULTI-TALENTED SUPERSTAR of the Liberal Democrat firmament can do it! Ms Helen and I were joined by Mr Alasdair, Ms Linda, Mr George, a large box of doughnuts and my Daddy Richard to interview the Liberal Democrats' (and indeed the House of Commons'!) youngest MP, Ms Jo Winsome. Ms Jo represents Dunbartonshire East and is Shadow Minister for Abroad. She is also a key figure in the gender balance taskforce. ... | < | July 2008 | > | ||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
