This was posted on Hibs.net forum earlier today and it is so good it deserves repeating... Scene: Duff and Phelps Insolvency Practice Cast: Paul Clark of Duff and Phelps played by Michael Palin Irate Customer played by John Cleese The sketch: An irate customer enters the insolvency practise Irate customer: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (Clark does not respond.) Irate customer: 'Ello, Miss? Clark: What do you mean "miss"? Irate customer: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint! Clark: We're closin' for lunch. Irate customer: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to ...
Charles Bradlaugh - a great secularist "When Mr Osborne sat down yesterday, he had pulled off quite a political coup - winning huge cheers from both Lib Dems and Conservatives, while leaving Labour looking wrong-footed and irrelevant." David Laws writes about the Budget for the Daily Telegraph. Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West, has tabled a parliamentary motion calling on the government to address the awarding of unwarranted bonuses and financial rewards in the pubs industry. A noisy demonstration frightened constituents away from an advice surgery, complains John Hemming (Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley). Amy Goodman ...
Last month, I welcomed the news that the the unadopted pavements in Marchfield Crescent were being upgraded to a good standard. The City Engineer has confirmed to me that similar improvements for Marchfield Road are imminent (has similar priority in the Unadopted Footways Programme). I also recently asked about the situation in nearby Marchfield Terrace on behalf of residents and am pleased to say that the City Council has advised: "Marchfield Terrace has been reassessed at 21 points which is likely to mean it will have enough points to be included in the 2012/13 upgrade and adoption programme once the ...
I went back to the London Road in Leicester today, exploring what From Tollgate to Tramshed calls The Portland Enclave. This is a collection of houses from the mid 19th century, most of which are reached along a private road. Portland Towers and its flanking terraces Portland Cottages and Knighton Cottages, rambling red brick buildings in a Tudor style, are the most interesting of these. The private road takes you to the back of the properties, where I met the man who maintains the flats that now occupy these buildings. As he said they are far more impressive when viewed ...
Only when you read the story do you discover that "a lengthy fuel crisis" in the Gaza Strip is caused not by Israel, but by "a dispute between Egypt and the Hamas government in Gaza over whether Gaza can trade with Egypt openly, or only via Israel". I suggest it might be a good idea if the Egyptian Government and Hamas sort this out. Another story about Gaza says that: "Last year Egypt eased restrictions allowing people to travel more easily, but all legal trade is still forbidden and the tunnel industry continues to thrive." So Egypt is ...
Impressionism may have had its heyday in Paris in the late 19th Century, but among some contemporary British artists several aspects of Impressionism — such as an emphasis on the depiction of light with all its changing qualities — can be identified. One of the most successful is the relatively young Bruce Yardley, who has an ...
I tweeted the other night that I don't "get" Celebrity Juice (there was a special edition on the TV as part of Sport Relief) and it set me thinking about other aspects of popular culture and modern life which I don't get. Here are a few. Specifically, here are 10... 1. Celebrity Juice. Keith Lemon, Holly Willoughby, Fearne Cotton. I don't get it, I don't get them. And vice-versa. 2. T4. I get the concept of Yoof/Hangover TV but have never understood why it's called T4. 3. Alex Salmond. In particular, Alex Salmond's popularity in Scotland - For all his ...
As you may know, I have a thing or two about Liberal Democrat raffles. But what a very fine raffle they run in Hackney Liberal Democrats, as I discovered on Friday night in the brilliant The Real Greek, Hoxton. Sensibly pricing, persistent ticket selling, not too many prizes (in fact, just the one). Very fine raffle organisation indeed. Oh, you wonder who won? Ah, that'd be myself.
Eight demonstrators operated a picket of my advice bureau today. This frightened a number of constituents who were worried by the shouting. I had asked them to be careful not to frighten people, but they didn't care that they were doing this.There were 15 people who came to the advice bureau before the demonstration, but only 3 after they turned up.John O Shea has a weblog here on which he
Manifesto IRCymru Cymraeg Filed under: Politics
Interesting poll from Lord Ashcroft on Con Home yesterday analysing the potential threat from a group of doctors who are planning to field 50 candidates at the next General Election against senior Lib Dem and Conservative MPs on an "anti-NHS reform" ticket. The absolutely fascinating finding is that whilst the doctors apparently have 18% support, they would only shave a little bit off the two coalition parties. By far the biggest loser from their entry to the parliamentary race would be Labour. Here comes the numbers bit: Before: Labour: 41% Conservative: 36% Lib Dems: 9% After: Labour 30% Conservative: 33% ...
You'll all have probably heard about the furore over the government's so-called "granny tax". What this basically is is a decision to freeze the tax allowance for pensioners (which is about £10,500) until the tax allowance for everyone else has caught up. And you know what, I don't really have a problem with that. I can't really see why the retired should get a bigger tax allowance than everyone else - particularly when you consider that the change will only cost them, on average, £85 a year. Mind you, with high fuel and utility bills and the increase in VAT ...
In the same way as we are capping how much people can claim in benefits, we are now putting a cap on the amount of tax breaks the wealthy can use to cut their income tax bills. Tax reliefs exist for good reasons, to promote activities such as business investment and philanthropy. But it is unfair that these reliefs can be used without limit to reduce income tax liabilities. The result is that some people with very high incomes in this country who are managing to play the system and pay incredibly low rates of tax. Thanks to the Lib ...
Over a dozen years ago I suggested on behalf of Southwark Cyclists a new pedestrian and cycle bridge linking Rotherhithe with Canary Wharf. Sustrans took this on as a project idea and its sisnce appeared in Southwark planning strategies. But its never quite taken of. Sustrans consultatnts Ramboll Whitbybird in 2008 suggested it would cost £66M capital and £69M to operate and maintain over its 125+ year considerable life time to build at the height of the last boom. Sustrans employed consulted Colin Buchanan to produce an economic appraisalwhich was last updated in 2008. It suggested such a bridge would ...
Liam Byrne famously left a handover note to his successor as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, saying "There's no money left - good luck!" I was reminded of this as, after a very enjoyable 21 months as Chief Executive of CentreForum, I start on Monday as one of Ed Davey's Special Advisers at DECC. I suppose the think tank equivalent would be "There are no ideas left - good luck!" In fact that is far from being the case. One of the joys of running a think tank is that there is never a shortage of ideas to ...
I blogged earlier about potential home building at the junction of Booker Avenue and Greenhill Road. This is the grassed bit, not the bit that used to be a petrol station. Anyway, South Liverpool Housing, the organisation that plans to do the building, is having an open day so residents can get information. SLH is very keen to get people's views as obviously there are two groups interested.. those who might want to live there and those that already do live in the area! This takes place on Wednesday 28th March from 3 to 7pm at the Bridge Chapel Centre ...
Slightly curious piece by Deborah Orr in the Guardian today. If I had to sum up her thesis in a sentence it'd be this: the Lib Dems should stop banging on about raising the threshold and taxing the wealthy and ... Continue reading →
March 23: visit by Dr Colin Butler, from the Australian NGO BODHI, working in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and elsewhere in South Asia
Anniversary dinner, with Jenny Bartlett, who was my wonderful Secretary for most of the eight years I was in the Commons.
Disappointingly, it would appear that the Coalition's efforts to combat the pernicious influence of lobbyists on our democracy have come up rather short of what Liberal Democrats might hope for. The fact that the senior civil servant responsible for the consultation was somewhat confused as far as objectivity was concerned might very well not have helped. So, what is needed? My colleagues at Unlock Democracy have the answer. They call for a public register of lobbying, which would include; the organisation lobbyingthe name(s) of individual lobbyist(s)information on any public office held by the lobbyist in the past five yearsthe public ...
I was dismayed to read the story linked here on the BBC's website this morning which states in its third paragraph: "Since 2000, much has changed on the Quays – not least the name, which has dropped the word Salford..." This is simply not true. Most of the people I know who live in Salford Quays are proud to say they are from Salford. Sorry BBC, you've got this one wrong.
I think I may have graduated from said school with a first class honours degree because excuse me but SPUC need to be hit over the head with the truth stick to stop them spreading such ridiculous falsehoods. For anyone that doesn't know the SPUC is an anti abortion campaign group. They have been going to schools ...
Back in August, I wrote here about my father's love of photography. I wrote at the time of the plan to finally convert his VHS videos to DVD, over 8 years after his passing. Well, I'm pleased to say that thanks to Stephen Radford in Maesteg, that process is underway. The best two conditioned VHS videos have been converted and the many more are a work in progress. A 50th Anniversary Present to Dad Dad's slide collection: 1961-1976 I also mentioned in passing in that August piece of my father's earlier steps into the world of photography with the many ...
Here's your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate... The details of the budget have been trailed extensively in the media and the blogosphere. We've had the increase in the personal income tax allowance, we've had the 'granny tax' and we've had a new stamp duty level of 7% for homes worth more than £2m. There were always going to be winners and losers in this fiscally neutral budget. But arguably the one measure that affects every self-respecting Briton is the pasty tax. Across the UK the love of pasties ...
Kay has written some amazing books, but unfortunately this isn't one of them. In Under Heaven he has moved away from his usual fantasy European setting and gone for a barely fictionalised account of a real incident from Chinese history, and for once I felt that his fidelity to the original facts got in the way of telling a good story. The plot is one of political, military and sexual tension; there are a couple of small fantasy elements which are so marginal that it hardly seems worth including them; and there is a poet who, thank god, does not ...
The Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers (IGEM) exhibited at the Liberal Democrats Spring 2012 Conference, which took place at The Sage centre in Gateshead from 9th - 11th March 2012. It is the first time IGEM has exhibited at a political party's conference and it gave the organisation a chance to raise its profile with senior Liberal Democrats holding key posts in the Coalition Government. IGEM met Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg, Vince Cable (Business Secretary), Danny Alexander (Chief Secretary to the Treasury) and Ed Davey (Energy Secretary). During visits to IGEM's area, ...
The Way the Future Blogs: The Reunion at the Mile-High Alternate Asimov! (tags: sf ) The settlement of Madagascar: Thirty lost souls | The Economist The thirty founding mothers of the Malagasy. (tags: migration ) Bir Tawil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The one part of Africa that no state claims as part of its territory. (tags: maps sudan ) Olympus 2012 - Programme I am on three panels. What about you? (tags: sf ) Can A Town Divided Against Itself Stand? - NYTimes.com Nicosia, Jerusalem, Mitrovica... (tags: kosovo cyprus maps )
You can hear the choking and spluttering of any Guardianistas who mistakenly picked up the Telegraph this morning, when reading this: http://aggbot.com/Headline-News/article/16467915 A remarkably grown-up piece by the Shadow Foreign Secretary on the possibility of a Labour – Lib Dem coalition. Apoplectic with rage, they will reach for their laptop and click onto the Guardian "Comment is ...
Andrew Duff, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East of England has written for EU Observer about his attempts to change the electoral system for MEPs. He wants to see 25 MEPs elected on a pan European basis, a proposal he believes will improve the legitimacy of the Parliament: Now the Union is moving to greater fiscal discipline and the probable installation of a more federal type of economic government which will have to be made directly accountable to Parliament. But do we sincerely believe that the European Parliament has attracted the desirable levels of loyalty and identification of the EU ...
This is a final call for nominations for the March Mental Health Carnival. If you would like to see a post from your own blog included, please send me an email by 7.00 p.m. on Monday (26 March). As Dance Without Sleeping wrote when posting the first carnival last year: I think it's really important to share our mental health experiences so that 1) people know they are not alone and 2) people understand what it's like to experience mental health issues. It's not all hearing voices in your head and covering things in tin foil! Mental health issues are ...
I have written in the past about the discovery that Nora Logan, the daughter of the Liberal MP for Harborough J.W. Logan, was a suffragette who went to prison for her beliefs. Recently I heard from a lady called Nina Boyd who is researching a group of wealthy ladies who were committed antivivisectionists, one of them Nora Logan. She tells me: Further to Jonathan's interesting remarks on Nora Logan's suffragette activities, I notice that she was involved in a small way in the 1911 Census Protest, in which many women defaced their census forms, or hid from the census (camping ...
SIGNAL BOOST: Doctor Who fan production (with Sylv and Paul Darrow in it!) needs funding (tags: DoctorWho ) Big science zooms in on a new cure for baldness This is OBVIOUSLY the most important thing in the world... (tags: ) People with autism possess greater ability to process information, study suggests (tags: autism ) Stella McCartney's London 2012 kit aims for aesthetics gold OMG look at the women's running kit! That's practically a thong! So glad I am not an athlete. (tags: epicfail ) A heartening example of the status quo being challenged (tags: Sexism ) The Shocking Truth - ...
This morning's Telegraph says that Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander has suggested that Labour could form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats after the next election: In an interview with the parliamentary House magazine, Mr Alexander said Labour should offer a tougher approach to state welfare and must not make the mistake of believing that government knows best. He called on Labour members to "respect" the fact that Lib Dems represent a "distinctive tradition" in British politics. Asked whether he could see the two parties working in coalition together after the next election, he said: "There's nothing inherently ...
Les Floyd has written a blog about Justice and Compassion mentioning in particular Charlie Gilmour and Gary MacKinnon. However, whilst talking about Charlie Gilmour, he mentions that Mr Gilmour (senior) wrote to his MP, and the MP in question, Francis Maude, was not minded to take a stance. Les continues with, MPs are not masters ...
Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin Next Saturday - 31st March - the monthly cappuccino concert in Dundee's Wighton Centre will be performed by fiddle and guitar duo, Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin. The concert will run from 11am till 12 noon, with complimentary coffee and newspapers served from 10.30am. And in the afternoon, from 2pm, there will be a fiddle workshop and a guitar workshop for anyone who wants to learn some of the musical tricks displayed in the morning's concert! Admission to the concert is £5. Admission to the workshops is £5, or £2.50 for under-18s. Also, on Wednesday ...
Would you give you're boss your social media password? An article in The Telegraph (Facebook passwords 'fair game in job interviews') today says we may have to. While Lee Williams, an online retail worker from the Midlands, told The Telegraph that he was asked ... Continue reading →
Much as I love the Union Flag, I'm not normally a fan of wrapping ourselves in it in a jingoistic or protectionist sense. But I am all in favour of flying it at public venues and major events and not being ashamed of proclaiming that goods or services have been "Made In Britain". I like to see British Athletes do well on the world stage and - for all my republican credentials - I like to hear the National Anthem played when our representatives win. Here's hoping we'll hear it again this weekend in Malaysia after Button's win in Melbourne ...
