Earlier this evening I watched a powerful drama on Channel 4. The Execution of Gary Glitter was — in its final outcome — expected from the very name of the programme. A superbly made film, with an absolute tour-de-force from Hilton McRae in the lead role, it was disquieting and terrifying in the possibility that state-sanctioned murder could ever come back to this country. The ' death penalty' (ie Judicially-sanctioned murder) does not work - just look at the countries which still have it and note how often those crimes which get 'death' as the punishment still happen regularly. It ...
The good news: no quantum physics inspired chat up lines. The even better news: the questionable cardigan was shrouded in dark most of the time. The bad news: the kangaroo didn't make a return. The plot thread juggling news: the plot's becoming easier to follow but only by leaving various loose ends abandoned in the corner without resolution. The twist near the end news: credit is due on this. Having made fun before of the "throwing in lots of difference clichéd plot twists all at the same time" approach, episode 7 ended with a (apparent) suicide - handled in an ...
ie about one of Jo Crotty's interns in Warrington – they could actually be investigating the current state of play of Warrington South which has become a 3-way marginal. Just a thought.
Last night I was at Rossendale's Festival of Rememberance Concert at the Bacup Leisure Hall, featuring the Haslingden & Helmshore Band. During the penultimate number, Elgar's Enigma Variation IX (Adagio) "Nimrod", a projector to the right of the hall started showing a slide show of the service personnel who had died since the last year's Remembrance Sunday. It was incredibly poignant and utterly moving, and I don't mean that simply as a pacifist. One of the photos was that of Grenadier Guardsman Jamie Janes, so it was absolutely disgusting that the Sun was using one mother's grief to mount a ...
It is now just 27 days to the start of the crucial United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. The purpose of the Summit is to conclude a new Treaty to co-ordinate the global response to the challenge of Climate Change. The Treaty would replace the Kyoto Protocol, and is critical to tackle the rapidly rising levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and prevent it heating up beyond the 2C rise scientists say is the limit we can safely allow. Today I attended the first day of the Environment Agency's annual conference, which not surprisingly focussed on the issue. ...
I want to take a different angle to the Sun's disgusting reporting of Gordon Brown's handwriting. Applying what is called the Social Model of disability, this really does highlight the engrained stigmatisation and discrimination that disabled people have in society. The endemic nature of discrimination may lead many to ask why I am even talking ...
Tonight I watched the Disgusting food program on BBC3. This gave the staggering information that although it costs 27.9p per litre to produce milk, whereas they are getting paid between 26.66p (Tesco) and 23.89p (Co-Op) per litre by the supermarkets. This is a truly shocking fact, which is why that I'm proud to say that WLDC as a council has: "RESOLVED that the Regeneration Services Manager on
I absolutely adore Armando Iannucci's Thick of It and suspect I am not alone on the political blogsphere in this. Comparisons with the equally excellent Yes Minister are somewhat counter-productive because both shows are products of their era and both are therefore brilliant for different reasons. Malcolm Tucker, played by Peter Capaldi, is an iconic figure for ...
The problem with years of bad posture, slouching in chairs, failing to bend at the knees and combining that with a lack of exercise and, to be blunt, carrying a few stone in weight that ill-suit me is that, eventually, you pay a price. For me, that price is back trouble and, just at the moment, it would be fair to say that I'm suffering a bit. On the other hand, it is something that I could do something about. I could sit up straight in my chair, on the sofa and on trains. I could walk more and I ...
I suppose technically any town that boasts a cathedral qualifies as a city, but few can be as small or as exquisite as the hilltop former capital of Malta, Mdina. The city houses only a few hundred inhabitants, but a whole series of beautiful baroque palaces and churches (including the Cathedral of St Paul) are ...
Where were you twenty years ago? I was in the Clarence in Manchester with a group of friends totally amazed, awed, and almost in tears at the euphoria about what was going on in Berlin. Something that at that time I didn't think would happen in ...
And I don't often say that. I heard her on the radio, so I don't have the exact words, but she was saying that the Kelly recommendations on expenses are basically a dog's breakfast and will get changed the next time somebody has a sensible look at them. The one that I find particularly illogical is the ban on employing relatives. It may turn out to be politically necessary, given the mood of the public, and the determination of our political leaders to be hairier shirted than thou, but I don't think it is administratively necessary or sensible. Leaving aside ...
Lord Roberts of Llandudno has drawn attention to the long-standing electoral discrimination against personnel serving in HM Forces. It has been calculated that as many as one-third of HM forces are not registered to vote. The government has known about this problem for a long time, but has declined to do anything about it.
Ask him about Lord Ashcroft's tax status. Watch him wriggle on the Andrew Marr show. And then ask yourself why the Independent, of all papers, is suddenly being nice to the Tory party with the headline: "Tories finally come clean on Ashcroft tax status" It quotes William Hague as saying: "My conclusion, having asked him, is that he fulfilled the obligations that were imposed on him at the time that he became a peer." He added: "I imagine that [paying taxes in the UK] was the obligation that was imposed on him." And they call that coming clean. The exchange, ...
Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee This agenda continued the scrutiny of mental health services in the borough and in particular looked at the results of the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS) safety review of inpatient services at the Sutton site and the recent closure of Chiltern Wing following the Legionella outbreak there. The meeting began ...
I think the resounding thing I feel from the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down (as predicted by my friend, the author of Cicero's Songs, when I first knew him in 1985, by the way)is old. Some of you may know that my husband is a few years older than me. What I studied in History at school had been Modern Studies for him. I kind of feel a bit like that with things like tonight's commemoration of an event which counts as History for my daughter. It surely can't possibly be two decades since we saw those ...
This afternoon's special meeting of the Environment committee went fairly smoothly. We now have hammered out a set of recommendations which should meet with cabinet approval and should help to drive up the carbon efficiency of the council's operations. The devil of course will be in the detail, in this case the action plans which will be brought forward in order to implement the
People often ask how much time each week being a local councillor takes up - bearing in mind that many of us, like me, also have a full time job. The short and unhelpful answer is that it varies. I knew there were some stats around for how many hours a councillor spends doing the role and a quick google led me to the Local Government Association (LGA) figure of 59 hours a month, as mentioned on page 3 of this magazine online.. I also happened upon a figure of 18.2 hours a week from Fylde Council, which I just ...
We are really enjoying the current BBC series of "Around the World in 80 days." Not least for the bits we travelled ourselves. We have travelled across Europe, by taking the Eurostar and changing trains in Paris, although while Skinner and Mack headed south We've also travelled from Moscow to Ulaan Bataar via the Trans Mongolian- on our Honeymoon no less! I remember sitting in the amazing Mongolian restaurant Louise Minchin sat in on the train back to Russia. We were pretty glad they glossed over the Russia-Mongola border as the crossing was quite nervy even when we did have ...
The former Queen Victoria Works in Brook Street (also known as Lower Pleasance Mill) is lying derelict and in a very poor state of repair. I raised concerns with the City Council's Legal Manager initially back in 2007 (see http://tinyurl.com/qvwdundee) and he advised me that the premises are owned by McGregor Balfour (Sales) Limited, a private limited company with an issued share capital of only £2. The Legal Manager advised me at the time that : "the Director of Planning and Transportation is of the view that the footprint of the building is secure to a reasonable standard; and I ...
The TaxPayers' Alliance has had a lot of success in getting media coverage, even though it clearly has no right to speak for taxpayers - in other words the entire population of Britain. Especially when its own director has admitted that he does not pay British taxes because he lives in France. Perhaps that gives us a clue as to why the Taxpayers' Alliance has so misunderstood the British people today. The Alliance has been widely quoted as criticising the fire service in Gloucestershire for rescuing a duck that was trapped in a water pipe. According to the Independent a ...
I'm well known in the blogosphere and beyond for being freakishly obsessive about spelling and punctuation. I have, to my eternal shame, even upset people by going on about it. I didn't mean to be evil,but the discovery that my comments were not just taken as playful banter was a bit of a wake up call to me. There are some times, though, when it is absolutely essential to get every detail right. Another of my obsessions is that if you are writing a letter of condolence, it absolutely must be done by hand. There's something about that gesture of ...
Tonight's "Evening Telegraph" covered the car parking charge proposals for Dundee Airport, including my comments about these. You can read the article by going to http://tinyurl.com/dundeeairpark or click on the headline above.
The Tories have unveiled a good policy on social housing. They are advocating giving social tenants more power to move home through swaps registered on a new database of all social housing. This policy should be supported for four reasons: 1. It gives tenants more control over their housing allowing them to move to better accommodation, or housing better suited to their needs. 2. It will allow social housing tenants to be more flexible in the labour market, moving to where there are jobs. Part of the problem of high level long term unemployment in some estates is caused by ...
I came across a story today about a Regional Development Agency accessing £700,000 of European backing to tackle the problem of rural areas without broadband. Unfortunately it wasn't ours. It hit me because I'm very away of the stretches of broadband unavailablity for our neighbours up Weardale. It's been a constant refrain since I was elected to the county council - but I've yet to see anything happen as a result of all the talk. And it's a critical issue for business. Many modern business simply can't function without high speed internet access. It's not a luxury - it's a ...
This is a guest post by Barbara O'Brien of the maacenter, which provides information for sufferers of mesothelioma (the cancer caused by over exposure to asbestos). They have a new blog platform to accompany the main site. One argument you may hear against health care reform concerns cancer survival rates. The United States has higher cancer survivor rates than countries with national health care systems, we're told. Doesn't this mean we should keep what we've got and not change it? Certainly cancer survival rates are a critical issue for people suffering from the deadly lung cancer mesothelioma. So let's look ...
Yesterday lunchtime Guido Fawkes posted about Adrian Hicks, the Liberal Democrat councillor who saw an alien in Winchester High Street. I pointed you to a video of Cllr Hicks discussing this encounter on 17 October and first wrote about it as long ago as 3 June. Liberal England: First with the stories that matter
The Jerusalem Post is one of several with the story: Apple Inc. on Friday approved for sale a Spanish-language eBook version of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, complete with a swastika application icon. A day later, presumably due to the blogosphere uproar, the $1.99 offering disappeared from the Apple's Application Store... 9to5Mac, a Apple Intelligence site, questioned Apple Inc.'s policy, saying, "We know the App Store won't sell overt erotica – even eBooks carrying the ancient love manual, the Kama Sutra, have been banned from the store – so we're really, really keen to know how come the company approved a ...
My union, the NAHT, is currently balloting its members on 3 questions. The first is whether schools should boycott the administration of the 2010 end of key stage two tests. The second whether we want to abolish the testing and the third whether we agree with a phased reduction of the tests. I will vote Yes, Yes and Yes.The end of key stage two tests leads to a restrictive curriculum, knocks
The Warrington Guardian reports: AN e-mail has been sent to every councillor in the town claiming that one of them is trying to recruit unpaid workers - ignoring national minimum wage guidelines. Clr Jo Crotty is the target of the e-mail claiming that the Warrington South Lib Dem MP hopeful has been advertising for an intern to work for her without pay. But the Bewsey and Whitecross member says that the mystery e-mailer's allegations are incorrect as not only does she not have any interns working for her but it is also within legal guidelines to take on interns. She ...
The FT has the story: Now here is a heart-warming tale of goodwill and political selflessness to start this cold winter day, a story of how a Lib Dem turned away an extraordinary piece of Tory intelligence and helped scupper Gordon Brown's election plans. Who is the man of honour in this a place of skulduggery and low politics? Arise Mike Hancock, the maverick Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South. You can read the full details over on FT.com, which include this comment from Mike himself: "I did only what I expect others to do to me," he told me, ...
Energy Secretary Ed Milliband refused to back the critical 2014 carbon capture pilot deadline today in the House of Commons. This could have signficant consequences for Longannet Power Station and the battle with climate change. To explain, 2014 is the date which the government set for the establishment of the carbon capture demonstration project. That date was set so that the technology could be rolled out across all coal fired power stations by 2020 which is a crucial date for meeting the government's objectives on cutting carbon emissions and for the battle against climate change. So if the pilots are ...
The Leicester Mercury reports: A protester chained herself to Leicester's Bowstring Bridge this morning in a last ditch effort to save it from demolition. The woman, who called herself Karen, breached the razor wired security cordon around the Duns Lane bridge, in Leicester's West End, at 6am. She said she had wrapped herself in chains and attached herself to a girder on the bridge, which about 40ft above the road. Speaking down from her position, she said she had taken the extreme step because she believed demolition was about to begin today. And the BBC News Leicestershire pages have a ...
Tory Rascal got in touch with me recently and asked if he could interview me for his "Blogger profile" series on his blog. I was happy to oblige. I think he asked some interesting questions about blogging and politics. You can read the results here and judge whether my answers are as interesting!
So, Gordon Brown has the handwriting of an average GP. It would be interesting to compare his writing with any one-eyed GPs. If you look at the word which has caused all the fuss, it seems reasonable to assert that Gordon Brown did spell the lady's name correctly. He writes "J" then "a" without any joining. The "a" finishes with quite a downstroke and then he leaves a gap. The next letter could well be an "n" with a commencing upstroke which starts about half way up the level of the "a" – so well off the line of writing ...
A group of Councillors (not just from my ward but from neighbouring ones also) are to meet with Merseytravel and the Council's highways officers either at the end of this month or the very beginning of next month to look at the sticky problem of parking around Liverpool South Parkway Station. It's great that the station is successful, but despite the extra spaces created at the back, residents still report problems with blocked drives etc because of spill over commuter parking. I suspect this is not something that can be solved overnight but is rather a longer term issue that ...
Wavertree's Labour MP, Jane Kennedy, gave an exclusive to David Bartlett today. She announced she would not be standing again at the General Election. I found out, as I imagine did quite a few others, from the front page of the Liverpool Echo. I wouldn't say I am entirely surprised at her decision. But what does surprise me is the way it has come out. Standing down is quite a big deal if you are a high profile former Minister and its not that long ago that colleagues were asking her to stand for a position within the PLP. Over ...
Our next Friends of Garston Park meeting is on Friday 20th November at 6 30 at the Long Lane Church. Do come along if you are interested.
I drove from Morecambe to Sutton Coldfield yesterday. I have written about driving recently and it gone some response so I will try again. If you leave the M6 at junction 12, turn left and drive along the A5 you are driving along the former Roman road called Watling Street. You may know that the Romans built straight roads and Watling Street was no exception - until they built the M6 Toll road. The first thing to notice about the A5 is that there are probably more signs telling you that there are speed cameras than there are signs that ...
Do you know what the most popular post on this blog is? I mean, easily the most popular? It is "Reflections on whether life is now sh1t", a post inspired by (several posts before) musings by Theodore Dalrymple at the Conservative Party conference on the subject of poverty. I was not so much reflecting on TD's ...
Alan Johnson has rejected Evan Harris's claim that he misled MPs in his statement over the sacking of government drugs adviser Professor David Nutt. From the Guardian: Johnson conceded that the Home Office and secretariat for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs had been warned in advance about a paper published by Nutt in an academic journal in January and a presentation he later gave at King's College London. Johnson cited the paper and the speech when explaining his decision to sack Nutt as chairman of the advisory council. Harris said Johnson was wrong to suggest Nutt was ...
Today has been one of those days. It started with the news that Gordon Brown had sent a handwritten letter to a mother of a dead soldier that was full of clumsy mistakes and spelling errors. The woman was furious... and promptly called the media. Cue media storm and Brown landed in yet another steaming pile of his own dung. I 'tweeted' my immediate reaction: The PM's atrocious letters are a serious PR blunder. Makes him look like he writes too many and doesn't really care. Fair enough? Other people replied along the lines that he does write too many ...
Could someone please tell us the point of the rather grandly-titled "Hampshire Senate"? The Senate was set up by Conservative-controlled Hampshire County Council and its leader, Ken Thornber, supposedly to bring together politicians and 'leaders' from various government agencies and businesses in Hampshire. Some people have likened it to a 'House of Lords' for Hampshire. It is an unelected talking shop with no democratic mandate - but the potential for enormous influence on decision-making. However, set up 18 months ago, all it seems to have achieved to date is introduce yet another burden for local Council Taxpayers to shoulder. What ...
Twenty years ago the Berlin Wall fell, communism collapsed, the Cold War ended and the world lived happily ever after. Well not quite - still to many people live behind brutal walls, be they dividing Israel and Palestine, stopping the unification of Korea or stopping the Western Sahara from having it's Independence back (to name just three) until these and other walls have been torn down the world is not, and will not be, free.
I've not posted for a very long time. Apologies for that. I've sat my university finals, been away a lot, and spent more time reading books than on the internet. I want to get back into blogging. Things may be a little different as I've changed my reading habits a little (less manic news gathering more contemplative). Perhaps my posts might get a little longer, and slightly less regular than they used to be. Maybe more like Chris Dillow than Guido in quantity. Anyway, I hope some readers come back, and especially my previously excellent commenters. Here is my first ...
I place a huge store on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day - for me it is about the society in which we live and the type of nation we seek to be. There is nothing glamorous about war, despite the films, and the sickening feeling at the pit of your stomach at loosing someone you love is only increased by their life being cut short in war and conflict. The London Boroughs have a tradition of marking the anniversaries with formal civic services at parish churches, but I was determined this year to ensure that the lower profile memorials were ...
Hertfordshire County Council has just started its budget consultation process with residents for next years spending priorities. As part of this consultation residents are being asked if they want spending to stay the same or decrease. Residents cannot say 'spend more'. Chris White, Liberal Democrat Opposition Leader, says: 'This consultation is flawed. We all know times are tough but there are some budgets that can be slashed, for example the self publicity budget, for the sake of improved services. Everyone knows Hertfordshire's roads and pavements are a mess but residents can't say in this survey they want more spent on ...
One of the drawbacks of enduring the fag-end of a government is that politics becomes tired and the sorry incumbent becomes a figure of fun; unreasonably so in many cases. Three major news sites; The Times, The Telegraph and the BBC all lead on the Gordon Brown letter story. For those that missed the story; Brown appeared ...
Bordering onto the Oval area, plans have been launched for the re-development of the New Covent Garden Flower Market - details here. What do you think? Let us know!
The start of a working week and, for as long as I can remember, I'm pain-free!! The sticks have been abandoned and the clips came out this morning so - I'm "up and at 'em" again. Before I move back to the business of campaigning, I will take time to reflect on my luck. I have good health and strength - not to say determination. I am surviving my recent "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and managing to retain a sense of humour which will always carry me through. I have good support from family and close friends and ...
There have been many a discussion relating to the Real Women's pledge to address the problems around airbrushing, in how it promotes unrealistic expectations of women. There were various amendments proposed at the Conference attempting to modify the policy commitment, as they felt that cultural changes needed to happen on themselves, without any legislation commitment. However, ...
Remembrance Sunday found me not at the big ceremony in Lord St but at the small War Memorial at St John's Church Birkdale. There was a full congregation. The act of remembrance at which those who have died in the two world wars and conflicts since has the usual two minutes silence-preceded and ended by a trumpet played by one of the choir boys. There followed a recital of the eighty odds names on the War Memorial read by four young people from the church as we remember 'especially the men of Birkdale'. The youngsters stood in the four corners ...
[IMG: Royal Society of Chemistry] This week is Chemistry week - so what does this mean for you... probably not a lot. But the University of Reading will be holding events for schools and the RSC 'should' be furthering the perception of chemistry to the public... [IMG: in-ele.jpg]
I've been doing mine. It's very depressing. Things like clothes and dentistry and new glasses come under can't afford this right now, which is very annoying because I really need a new bra. BUT I can make it balance, and still afford to go climbing with my dad and do Liberal Drinks once a month, as long as I am very very careful, and also save all my tips from work instead of drinking them. This is not going to be easy. Still, Mat is doing paid work today, and we have a paid blog redesign project to do together, ...
I am all in favour of the National Assembly engaging with the media, and therefore the public, as much as possible. But I do wonder if this press release was ever likely to achieve that. Name change to clarify work of Assembly committee An Assembly Committee will be re-named after Members voted in favour of the change this afternoon (Nov 4). The Independent Panel, which was set up to look into the system of financial support for Members and which reported in July, felt that the present name of the Audit Committee was confusing. The panel recommended that the focus ...
One of the key things that any agent needs to remember is to save the deposit. Historically this was set at 12.5%, between 1918 and 1985, but nowadays it is 5% and the deposit that you have to place with the returning officer is £500. As an agent I have never lost a deposit, but in ...
There is a fascinating story on the FT blogs by Alex Barker today. In it he explains how Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock sometimes accidentally gets e-mails which are actually meant for Matt Hancock, Shadow Chancellor George Obsorne's chief of staff. The story is that in the autumn of 2007, he received information about the Tory plan to raise the inheritance tax rates just days before the Tory conference. Of course had this information leaked out then Labour would have been in a position to pre-empt the announcement and spoil Osborne's announcement. Mike sent the e-mail onto its rightful recipient ...
From Mark Hunter's website: Cheadle MP Mark Hunter has welcomed the recommendations from the Kelly report into MP 's expenses and urged the Government to implement the recommendations as soon as possible. The Kelly report was an independent enquiry setup to recommend reports to MP 's expenses after the scandal earlier this year. It proposes several changes such as not allowing MPs to claim for mortgages, a ban on employing relatives, and reduced travel claims. Mark has never claimed on his family home in Bramhall, has not been asked to repay any money by the Sir Thomas Legg enquiry, and ...
A group of 44 academics is lobbying the Advertising Standards Authority to change the rules on ads featuring airbrushed models, following the publication of a research paper which says that such ads encourage eating disorders and self-harm. The paper was organised by the Liberal Democrats as part of their Real Women campaign, which calls for a ban on airbrushed advertising images aimed at children, and for ads aimed at adults to carry a disclaimer. From the Telegraph: The paper has been submitted to the Advertising Standards Agency with a call for all airbrushed adverts to carry a notice making clear ...
[IMG: 1988_heaton_park_under_threat.jpg] Goals Soccer Centres have re-submitted an amended planning application to Bury Council for consultation following formal submission to Manchester City Council last week. It is expected to be a supplementary item on Bury Councils Planning Committee of NOVEMBER 17th where it will be presented for consultation only. As reported last week, this application will be decided by Manchester City Council on December 17th. The details are Application number: 51957 Type of application: Consultation From Neighbouring Authority Date Registered: 03/11/2009 Applicant: Goal Soccer Centres plc Location: AREA ADJACENT TO EXISTING BOWLING PAVILION, HEATON PARK, PRESTWICH, M25 2SW Proposal: PROPOSED ...
An interesting post at DMNews reports how the non-profit sector is far less likely than the for-profit sector to think about how to use email addresses for tailored campaign communications: Though three-quarters of nonprofits gather consumers' names and locations when they sign up for e-mail communications, that's often where consumer data collection ends for those groups ... Nonprofits are half as likely as for-profit companies to collect information beyond name and geographic location from their e-mail subscribers — 20% vs. 42%. The lost opportunity is clear: email is the quickest, easiest, cheapest means to distribute mass, tailored communication. Thinking of ...
South of the Borough Neighbourhood Committee on Wednesday will be in the Hook Centre at 7.30pm. The main item from my perspective is the Neighbourhood Community Plan. That may sound a bit dry, but it is something completely new in Kingston. This is because policies for the Neighbourhood have been developed, not by councillors or council officers, but by a panel of residents. The Community Plan will replace the annual policy statement by the Committee, and the policies in it will be tracked at future meetings. So what are the policies they have proposed? In brief: Provide accommodation for the ...
It seems as though another one of our great British companies is about to be gobbled up, this time by chocoholic Americans. Kraft is putting in a hostile bid for Cadburys. I fear that yet another market is about to be cornered by an international conglomerate with little commitment to where the company originated. The ongoing growth of companies by merger and takeover rather than by organic
[IMG: Lib Dem proposals would protect children] Lib Dem proposals would protect children "ContactPoint database of 11million children's details to go ahead despite security fears," read the Telegraph's headline on Saturday. "Every child in England will have their personal details stored on a controversial database despite fears over security and privacy." The article, by Martin Beckford and Graeme Paton, went on: "Ministers are pressing ahead with the introduction of ContactPoint to every local authority in the country after claiming that a pilot project has proved a success. They say the long-delayed £224 project will make England's 11million young people safer ...
Welcome to the 142nd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (1st – 7th November 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, partly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Name-calling, Invective, Slurs or ...
Mon 9th
13:54
Kim Jong-il has 19 private trains and 6 luxury stations - whilst 8 Million North Koreans face starva...
According to today's Telegraph, the Stalinist leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-il has a fleet of luxury trains and stations that ferry him around North Korea and his infrequent trips to friendly countries – China. He is, apparently, not a frequent flyer, so his trains have to make up for the lack of airmiles in the ...
A fair amount of coverage of Jackie Ashley's revelation in The Guardian that Labour could come out the other side of next election with as few as 120 MP's. Substantively, Ashley's point that the Conservatives divisions on Europe will do them little damage this side of the election is correct in my eyes. Whether her private polling ...
So, this evening I will be one of the people guesting on the House of Comments podcast (beware of cheap Tory imitations). I am woefully ill-prepared, and would love it if you guys could suggest topics for discussion, since one of the two I suggested has been semi-vetoed on the grounds that they have already covered it. What has been resounding across the political blogosphere this week?
Monday: That so-called "newspaper", "the Scum" has found a whole NEW way to be OBSCENE. They've taken the hurt and anger of a grieving mother and USED it, used HER, as an excuse to attack the Prime Monster... for his HANDWRITING. We KNOW that Mr Frown cannot see from one eye and has problems with the other. We KNOW that fiddly handwriting is DIFFICULT for him. Nevertheless, he - quite RIGHTLY - takes the trouble to PERSONALLY write to the families of each fallen soldier. You can UNDERSTAND Mrs Janes' anger. But what does "The Scum" get out of it? ...
The Woodthorpe Hotel in Prestwich was the glamorous setting for the fourth Bury Liberal Democrats Annual Dinner on Friday 6th November. "What better place for a 28 year old to be spending his Friday nights?" you may well be asking. I, for one, have no answer to that... This year we were joined by guest speaker Andrew Stunell MP, the Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove. Mr Stunell is the vice chair of the Lib Dem General Election campaign, and is also a member of the House of Commons International Development Select Committee. He had returned from a fact-finding trip ...
Twenty years ago this Remembrance Week the Berlin Wall came down. It was a defining moment for a generation; an historical bookmark as significant to its time as the 9/11 attack has been to the early years of this century, or the assassination of John F. Kennedy was to the 1960s. Indeed, it was the ...
I've received this from Andrew Stunell, Lib Dem MP in the neighbouring constituency of Hazel Grove The Government is set to cut nearly £800 from the budgets of some of Stockport's poorest people in April, according to Hazel Grove MP Andrew Stunell. Government plans to alter the Local Housing Allowance could leave low-income families up to £780 a year worse off. At the moment, families receiving Local Housing Allowance (LHA) are able to keep up to £15 a week if they choose a home with a rent below the Local Housing Allowance's maximum for their area. Chancellor Alistair Darling now ...
Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors seem to be in the news today, locally and nationally. At a national level, Gordon Brown has been attacked for spelling the name of a soldier killed in Afghanistan wrongly in a hand written note to his grieving mother which contained other grammatical errors. Meanwhile a local Bury Labour Councillor has been accused of being illiterate by a Conservative Councillor for spelling and grammar mistakes on an email circulated to councillors. Now personally I think that perhaps the biggest accusation that could be levied at Gordon Brown was that he should have paid closer attention ...
The Liberal Democrats have formally asked the Home Secretary to apologise to the Commons for misleading statements concerning Professor David Nutt and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and to apologise to Professor Nutt for the unfair damage done to his reputation for the incorrect and unjustified allegations made about him. In a formal complaint to the Home Secretary, Liberal Democrat Science Spokesperson, Dr Evan Harris accuses him of misleading the Commons and calls for him to make a quick apology and correction. Commenting, Evan Harris said: "Lord Drayson, the science minister, has now publicly criticised the Home ...
I continue to be amazed that Labour's own internal financial problems haven't been a bigger issue. The issue is one that goes to the heart of their integrity, competence and fitness to Govern. A pet theory of mine, as yet untested, is that the way parties run themselves internally is probably one of the best indicators we have about what a Government run by that party will be like. I base this on the idea that parties can run their parties however they like so, in effect, it exposes how they view authority, organisation, hierarchy, democracy etc. In addition we ...
Liberal Vision has received an anonymous dedication to David Howarth MP, who is standing down at the next General Election. We're more than happy to publish it here: [IMG: dhphp] Most aptly called 'Rumpolian' by Quentin Letts, David Howarth, to the dismay of many, announced on Thursday that he will not be seeking re-election, in order to concentrate on his other life as an academic. In the week that saw the dismissal of a government advisor on drug use by a Home Secretary more wedded to spin than science, David Howarth's words have never been truer: "Liberals still believe in ...
At our 2001 party conference I donned a shocking pink t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "I am not a token woman" and spoke in opposition to all-women shortlists. Eight years on, I am still opposed to the use of single gender shortlists, but I wonder if I was then taking aim at the wrong target. Research done by the party in advance of Nick Clegg's recent appearance before the Speaker's Conference showed, as I argued back in 2001, no evidence that our party discriminates against women in candidate selections. Far from it: analysis of 237 selections shows that two thirds ...
Mon 9th
11:24'John, it's Mark Oaten on the phone saying someone's been mucking about with his face!'- The Press O...
As a press officer you sometimes get calls that need immediate and urgent action. I was in someone else's office when a call came through saying that I urgently needed to speak to Mark Oaten, the MP for Winchester. It was apparently an issue about some photographs that were going to be published in The Mirror ...
The Western Mail reports on Welsh Liberal Democrat MP, Jenny Willott's attempt to live for a week on the basic state pension. Jenny, who usually earns £64,766 a year as MP for Cardiff Central, and company director Dwynwen Williams, pledged to live on the £95.25 each as part of a UK-wide experiment aimed at highlighting pensioner poverty: Ms Willott, a 35-year-old Liberal Democrat, who lives in Adamsdown, Cardiff, told her Twitter account: "My Remembrance Day poppy is looking tatty and I need a new one. I appreciate now it's a much bigger sacrifice to buy one as a pensioner." She ...
The latest post by the MoretonWest & Saughall Massie Conservatives, under the title of Respect seems to be one of double standards. Criticising another political party for their conduct, and then making the statement that they themselves have never, and would never peddle politics on a day that is for remembering all those fallen heroes, ...
2 Big Stories Brown apologises for mis-spellings in condolence letter Here's a deeply uncomfortable story to start the week: Downing Street has defended the way the prime minister writes to bereaved families after a dead soldier's mother said Gordon Brown misspelled his name. Guardsman Jamie Janes, 20, from Brighton, East Sussex, was killed in an explosion in Afghanistan in October. The Sun newspaper said his mother Jacqui had described Gordon Brown's letter as a "hastily scrawled insult". Mr Brown has personally contacted Mrs Janes to assure her he did not mean any offence. In a statement, Number 10 said the ...
From the recent Intelligence Squared debate, here's Stephen Fry on the Catholic Church: (skip to 2m30 to avoid Ann Widdecombe) He starts out in such a measured and nice way that when he begins to round on the church for all its ills it really is magnificent to watch and considerably better than Christopher Hitchens' blustery attempt. Fry really is an excellent lecturer.
A week today, starting at 10am on Monday 16th November, an act of political record keeping resurrection will commence as the lost marked register from the Glenrothes Westminster Parliamentary by-election is recreated. The lost of the Glenrothes marked register caused more controversy than such loses usually do both because it happened at a Parliamentary by-election and because the result in that election was, to many people, a surprise. The Goverment's reaction to the loss of marked registers after the 2005 general election was underwhelming. As I described it in February: In other words [the Government line is]: 'we don't know ...
Jacqui Janes, mother of fallen 20 yr old Grenadier Guardsman Jamie Janes, has slammed the PM for the error-ridden letter of condolence he sent to the family. I'm sure I would be just as angry if I had received such a letter, however I would not use it as a springboard to launch an attack on the Government, as Ms Janes has done... "But the Government sent Our Boys and Girls out without the best equipment and my little boy came back in a coffin." This is disrespectful to the memory of such an inspirational individual. Jamie Janes was the ...
Fascinating post from Rob Fenwick drawing on the impact of Twitter in scuppering #Trafigura to assess how it might play a significant role in the next General Election: Millions discussed Trafigura on Twitter. By the time Trafigura hired someone who understood social media, just three days later on October 16th, their staid YouTube response was only able to garner a few hundred views. Many simply weren't interested in the story any more, and those who were interested weren't inclined to help the company out by passing on the existence of the video. They'd burned millions of bridges with millions of ...
This year I went to Stechford. We have recently restored the war memorial at the roundabout at the end of Albert Road. I normally have gone to the service in the City Centre, but instead went with the Stechford and Yardley North Councillors to Stechford in part to see the event with the restored memorial.I did take some photographs, but Rob Jones was there. He takes photographs of many of the
Gordon Brown getting the name of a dead soldier wrong in a condolence letter to his mother is bad enough. The statement released by Downing Street is worse. One of the lines, quoted by the BBC, is that the prime minister "would never knowingly misspell anyone's name". What? Did I miss someone accusing the PM of ...
David Wooding (Whitehall Editor, The Sun): "News of the world cleared by PCC of hacking into thousands of phones to get stories. The Guardian stories were wrong, it ruled." The Guardian: "The [PCC] report confirms the central allegation made by the Guardian and has not produced any independent evidence of its own to contradict a single fact in our coverage."
I missed this story in yesterday's Sunday Times but that does not make it any less significant. As David Cameron struggles to keep his Euro sceptics in the box until after the next General Election he is also fighting a battle on another front, trying to limit the damage caused by his alliance with some rather dubious European bedfellows, made as part of a attempt to appease the Tory right wing. The Sunday Times reports that in an attempt to contain embarrassing outbursts from its new partners on the east European right, the Tory party has sent its media minders ...
Honestly, this is a newsworthy event. Very rare occurence. I don't think there are any underlying factors. Normal service will be resumed next week, I suspect.
Three remarkable things happened yesterday. It was clear that the crowd at the war memorial in St Albans was larger than usual - larger in fact than most of us can remember. The same apparently was true in Whitehall. The crowd spontaneously instituted a new tradition - it applauded those wearing service uniforms and the British Legion as they passed by on parade. Unprecedented and moving. The second remarkable event was planned: for the first time the religious service was multi-faith - a Rabbi read scripture and an Imam recited verses from the Quran. This serves to remind us that ...
That's the question PR Week posed to a selection of people from across the PR industry, myself included. My answer as to the next Twitter? The BBC: Although there's been confusion over various media reports, the BBC has confirmed that significant changes are on the way, including allowing people to comment directly on stories and tapping user feedback more generally. The changes may not be path breaking, but when they are rolled out by an organisation with two of the ten most popular websites in the UK (and the only two owned by non-American firms), the impact on British online ...
I have now launched my November Update to West End Community Council. Subjects covered include school buses in the West End, Dundee Airport parking charges, West End Christmas Week, signs in Osborne Place and the boundary fencing round the former Homebase site on Riverside Drive. You can read the update by going to http://tinyurl.com/weccnov09 or by clicking on the headline above. The Community Council meets tomorrow at 7pm, at Logie St John's (Cross) Church Hall in Shaftesbury Terrace.
On Friday, Iain Dale blogged about the fact that Nigel Farage, the outgoing leader of UKIP and MEP has been complaining that his Palace of Westminster pass has been removed. The Westminster authorities have decided to remove the privilege from all MEPs. They claim it is to "save resources" but there is a very strong suspicion that the move is to ensure that the two elected BNP MEPs cannot have passes. Iain says: I have to say I have never quite understood why MEPs had passes to the building in the first place, so I can't get as excited as ...
Labour's three Cabinet members who represent Haughton West ward have been stung into action by our newly formed Focus Team. This weekend the first edition of Labour's Haughton West Community News hit the doormats, complete with grainy photos, "Working for you all year round" and "Tell us what you think". I guess we should be flattered that they've produced a near carbon copy of a Focus leaflet.
The result of a poll on Lib Dem Voice about whether the Lib Dems should have all women short lists has been published. I myself said in the poll that there should be no all women short lists, but that where there are good women candidates they should get more support from the party. The majority agreed with this. I don't agree with any kind of discrimination: one person's positive discrimination is another person's negative discrimination. Here is a link to the Lib Dem Voice results: Lib Dem Voice Poll on all women shortlists* about How Lib Dems voted on ...
To mark the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I thought I'd post up a poem about walls. This wasn't written about the Berlin Wall but does cover the themes of freedom and liberty. (Please feel free to add links in the comments to your own poems/thoughts/memories about the Berlin Wall.) Sometimes the news is hard enough to hear Let alone live through We have let hate win If we allow for one minute these borders of hate To run among us Dividing our hearts, separating our minds The truth is this The medieval mindset that ...
In this morning's Guardian Julian Glover writes about one of this blogs heroes Richard Jefferies: "I became green everywhere in the first spring, after London ended, so that all the country looked alike," wrote Richard Jeffries (sic.) at the start of his entrancing but rarely read novel After London. He was a Victorian farmer's son who died young, after dreaming his vision of a post-industrial England drowned by noxious floods and strangled by forests. He predicted environmental apocalypse as modern climate scientists do: but in his world some undescribed calamity had ended urban civilisation and nature had overcome the cities. ...
Tom Papworth could use your help over at the ASI blog: In a new Think Piece I have drafted for the ASI, I propose phasing [the state pension] out in such a way that those over 60 get a full pension, anybody under 20 gets no pension, and the rest of us see our pensions tapered away at a rate relative to the amount of time we have to make alternative arrangements. Mechanisms would be put in place to ensure that the poorest were not left without any support, and that nobody was blindsided by a sudden market collapse. But ...
That was the title of my writing competition for local democracy week. Alexandra Park and Highgate Wood schools entered whole-heartedly into the whole spirit and submitted a huge amount of entries (and there were a few from other schools too). I read every single one - and have to say that many, many of them were utterly brilliant. It was very heartening to see how much our children cared about poverty, pollution, homelessness, knife crime, drugs, poor children in Africa and of course - world peace above all However, when it came to choosing a winner, I couldn't help but ...
The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee is contacting the Scottish government and Scottish councils about where they place job adverts and public notices. This is in part because a lot of these adverts have switched from newspapers to online advertisers. Like the Scottish Affairs Committee, I also suspect some of this is an exercise of procurement and they are therefore saving people like me, the council tax payer money. However, I do also agree that in parts of Scotland switching entirely to online advertising will be counter productive, for three reasons; 1. There are parts of Scotland where a ...
This coming Thursday 12th November, at 7:30pm at the Tabernacle, Algernon Road SE13 7AT there will be a public meeting held by the Central Lewisham Action Group, a group of residents that opposes the current plans for redevelopment of the area often referred to as Lewisham Town Centre although currently this area is still mostly ...
A CHAP called Kelly has finally revealed his brilliant plan to sort out MPs' expenses. While most of it is OK, there are a few slightly weird bits in it. For example, he reckons that eventually all MPs might have to live in accommodation owned by the government. What has he got in mind? A giant dormitory, with lights out at 11pm and no visitors? Or just a converted prison where we're all locked up for the night, for our comfort and everyone's safety? Then there's the other recommendation: You can't employ a "family" member. So what does that mean ...
