Apparently some people are questioning the figures for abnormals. Here are the facts as best I know them. The figures provided to the county council by their consultants were as follows: According to my Freedom of Information request these figures were reviewed and adjusted before incorporation into the summary table in the papers to cabinet which can be found on the thirty-seventh page here. I've published this in repsonse to a request which, I guess, shows that although the figures are now quite old, the emotions still run high.
Mon 23rd
23:22
Stephen Lloyd MP marvels at St Mary in the Castle as Council announces intentions of three prospecti...
On 15 April Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd attended the monthly Jazz Breakfast at St Mary in the Castle organised by the Friends of the venue, and was blown away by its beauty. Speaking after the event he said, "What an absolutely stunning site St Mary in the Castle is. The acoustics are superb and I ...
Today I had two Hustings meetings to contend with. The first was at Cliftonhall School at the very edge of Edinburgh and involved the whole senior school. Questions varied from Independence to Curriculum for Excellence. No questions about trams which was a nice change. We had the whole of the senior school present. Tonight it was the turn of Murrayfield Community Council. A reasonable turnout. Questions varied from Flood Protection to street cleaning. Again no trams. That should be the last of these for this diet of elections for me. They have by and large been conducted in a very ...
For those not aware, or who are not Liberal Democrat party members, the thorny topic of accreditation (vetting) of LibDem conference attendees has cropped up again. This time round, Federal Conference Committee (FCC) is well aware of the sensitivities and has been asking for views from the wider party on the topic. I won't go into the civil liberties issues, as that's been covered elsewhere. I have however been involved in another aspect of the process, that of accrediting transgender party members and by extension, to some extent also anyone else with an inconsistent or secret previous identity such as ...
Now that the GOP has stopped tearing itself apart in its 'who can believe the most impossible things before breakfast' contest - otherwise known as its Mormon v Creationist primary - it is clear the US electorate is turning towards the November contest. And what they see is a President with election losing approval ratings - no doubt due to sluggish growth and botched health reforms of the Obama administration. This graphic from US polling company Rasmussen is particularly interesting: Unsurprisingly with this approval rating the pollster puts Romney ahead of Obama 47:44. It will be interesting to see how ...
ShropshireLive says: A Shropshire road is to close for up to three days in June as work is carried out to investigate the integrity of a wall which retains the road. The Snailbeach to Stiperstones road will be closed in Snailbeach between 9am and 4.30pm for up to three days, starting on Wednesday 6 June 2012.This is a remarkable stretch of road. With hairpin bends, it runs for a couple of miles between these two villages along the side of the Stiperstones ridge. And not so many years ago it was possible to scramble up from it and enter the ...
I am still reading Judith Flanders' The Invention of Murder. On the train home this evening I read about the Whitechapel murder of Harriet Lane by Henry Wainwright in 1874. The Times, at least, gave the case more column inches than the Jack the Ripper murders in the same borough 13 years later. Like many murders of the period (though the tradition was dwindling by 1874) the case was the subject of a play. And Flanders writes: The Royal Clarence Theatre, Dover, had The Whitechapel Tragedy running for a week. The following year a theatre in Market Harborough produced either ...
Not everyone realises that there is a slope up Villa Real. Nor do I when in a car. But now that I'm into the swing of training for the Great North Run I know all about it, and what a struggle the run is going to be for anyone who thinks that Villa Real is a hill! I thought I'd go public here about my ambition as making targets public is always a good plan. If you keep them to yourself it's all to easy to pretend that they never existed. There's a long way to go – literally – ...
Something else I was too busy to blog about last week was the attack on Conservative Home that Peter Oborne wrote in the Daily Telegraph: The growth of the internet has encouraged the development of a monocultural community of young men (very few women) who are devoted users of Twitter, serial attenders of think-tank breakfasts and keen analysers of each and every political event. Conservative Home insists that it speaks for mainstream Conservatives, a claim that I used to be sympathetic to, but which is surely now only believed by BBC television and radio producers, and which needs to be ...
Mark Thompson makes an excellent point over at his blog here. He points out that those Conservative MPs who now oppose the Coalition Agreement commitment to elect the House of Lords using proportional representation because they claim last year's referendum on changing the voting system 'rejected PR' are plain wrong: There is not really a delicate way to put this. [Eleanor] Laing and [John] Redwood are lying. What the public rejected was the Alternative Vote. AV is not a proportional system. In fact it can be less proportional than First Past the Post. But don't take my word for it. ...
Nick Clegg has recently been criticised for opening up opportunities for women to work. Apparently,as Jonathan Calder comments, there are people out there he believes mothers shouldn't work. The debate at this has stirred is fascinating, as one comment observes; "both are true: whatever mothers do, they are criticised. Stay-at-home mothers are sponging off their ...
Mark Thompson says Liberal Democrats should not fear a Lords reform referendum. Richard Morris goes further and makes the case for holding one. Well, I don't fear a referendum, but I don't want to see one held. As I argued in Liberal Democrat News last year, the way that our relations with the European Union - which should have been one of the great issues in British politics for the last 20 years - have been taken our of electoral politics has been harmful to the standing of Parliament: Why should voters feel enthusiastic about Westminster when their representatives avoid ...
I wanted to raise awareness about the good work IFAW and Elephant family are doing to try to stop the illegal, and immoral, ivory trade. http://www.ifaw.org/uk and http://www.elephantfamily.org/ Passion seems to be a key ingredient to getting things done in ... Continue reading →
It's St George's Day. And what could be more English than morris dancing? The blackened faces here, suggests Wikipedia, are either a reminder that morris dancing was originally known as Moorish dancing, a form of disguise adopted by 17th- and 18th-century labourers supplementing their wages with a spot of dancing and begging, or a remnant of the 19th-century craze for Black minstrels. (That last explanation seems to be the one Roy Palmer favours in The Folklore of Shropshire.) Whatever the explanation, the faces are typical of Border morris - "from the English-Welsh border: a simpler, looser, more vigorous style". (That's ...
Cabinet decision is to cancel all outstanding penalties and to write to everyone who has already paid offering (a) either a refund if an application is made (b) or that Herts County Council gives the money to charity instead. Executive Member Cllr Stuart Pile issued a statement that conceded only that a technical error had been made on the Traffic Regulation Order for the Bus Lane (because the scheme was unusually complicated). He made no reference to the Traffic Tribunal's criticism, no reference to the obscured and confusing signage and no reference to the fact that Cllr Nick Hollinghurst and ...
The French Presidential election has thrown up something of a conundrum. Nicolas Sarkozy did not lead in the first round, as he was expected to, and that is supposed to send a bad signal to his campaign. On the other hand, as I predicted here in January, The Front National made advances even from the record result they gained under Marine Le Pen's father, Jean Marie. That 19% of the vote is now up for grabs, and the gap between the President and his Socialist challenger is wafer thin. Francois Hollande has to favourite- he has less hair than Sarkozy ...
We hope these action will happen for all houses in multiple occupancy (HMO's) a lot of these houses are not fit for those living in them, without correct fire escapes etc. They also cause issues for those living around them.
A few days ago I was in Strasbourg as part of a scheme of trips to the European Parliament for Lib Dem bloggers. While I was there I was fortunate enough to be able to interview six Lib Dem MEPs - who were generous enough to give up time to talk to me. Finding an MEPs office is not an easy task in Strasbourg. From the press room you must go down a corridor, down another corridor, up a lift, down a corridor, across a bridge, into a rabbit warren of yet more corridors and offices, up another lift and ...
The REM song Losing My Religion sprung to mind yesterday morning as I stormed out of church. Not that I am losing mine but certain lines stuck out. That's me in the cornerThat's me in the spotlightLosing my religionWhen I am in the bad we do sit down in the corner after we have finished playing waiting for the sermon. That was where I was yesterday morning, in the front pew next to the West door. Although I was furthest into the pew by the time we had all set down instruments and headed out. So in essence I was ...
I know I'm hardly the first person to post this video today, but if you've missed this Nadine Dorries treat...well, enjoy...
It's World Book Night tonight and, for the second year running, I didn't get my act together to volunteer to give out any of this year's free books - something I blogged about doing last year. Still, there's always next year... Anyway, earlier on blogger, I saw this, as tweeted by Jasper Conran's studios. It's an animation made in a bookshop in Toronto - and provides an insight into the nocturnal life of books... Andrew
I don't write a lot about music on here. Most people say my music taste sucks. In the interest of fairness it should be noted that such amazing songs as the two Yeo Valley raps on my iPod, Hanson has three songs I think and I have both Savage Garden albums on there. Most recently though I have gravitated to more clubbing music but there are other people I like and one of them has just blown my mind. I loved the debut single from American folk singer Lizzie. The song When I'm alone (embedded below) was nice and catchy ...
Mon 23rd
16:23
LibLink: Paul Tyler and Andrew Adonis: Reform the House of Lords now and it can survive
Over on the Guardian's Comment is free, Paul Tyler and Andrew Adonis say that the second chamber is costly and unrepresentative, and that only radical change will head off the abolitionists: Whatever opponents say, the status quo is not a realistic option. When the majority of hereditary peers were excluded in 1999, Lords' membership fell to 666. By the last election, it had risen to 706 and today it is 786. If those on leave of absence resumed their seats, the figure would rise to 807. Since the pace of party political patronage outstrips that of the grim reaper, an ...
A bit strong you might think (if you happen to be Cllr Clive Hart), and my justification a rather pitiful comment by one of Hart's colleagues, Alan Poole in response to Thanet councils negligent management of Margate town centre. According to Friday's Isle of Thanet Gazette former councillor Paul Twyman, was motivated by council indolence into dragging a 10ft plant holder to the council offices, which had broken and lain some days strewn on Margate high street, astonishingly despite the proximity to the council offices and of course ignoring the fact, reported elsewhere in the paper, that Thanet council employs ...
Conservative-controlled Herts Highways, responsible for managing and maintaining Hertfordshire's road network, has today been forced to admit to a major blunder that is likely to cost the county council about £1.26 million. The ill-starred bus lane in Moor End Road, Hemel Hempstead, is a key element in the town's traffic management intended to reduce congestion and keep buses running on time to destinations such as Chesham, Berkhamsted and Tring. After a false start with rising bollards that had to be removed, the council settled on a more conventional bus lane which went live on 25th July 2011. It was enforced ...
Copywright Ewan-M Application No DC/12/79873/FT Location 51 DURHAM HILL, BR1 5NF Case Officer Katie Lazzam Proposal The construction of a single storey extension to the side and rear of 51 Durham Hill BR1. Documents Online here.
The excellent Rock the House competition has come round again, and four local bands have asked me to nominate them. I can only send one band through to the final though and I need your help to decide who that should be. Check out the links that the bands have sent to me, then vote on the poll below. The Doghouse 2 Tone Red The Famous Class Jane Honda The poll will close at 23.59 on 26th (Rock the House have agreed to extend their deadline for nominations) so make sure you vote by then. Note: There is a poll ...
We got battered last year. So it would only be natural if we were to be a little wary of plunging headlong into another referendum for changing our political system so soon after the public rejected our proposal for AV for the Commons by such a wide margin. There are now rumblings from Conservative MPs and also the Labour leadership that any change to the Lords should be subject to a referendum. Nick Clegg has strongly argued that this is not necessary as all three main parties were committed to reform in their manifestos and it is also in the ...
Over the weekend I published this about Asbestosis, Mesothelioma and the Legal aid bill. It is good to see local politicians/commentators uniting for the greater good of their constituents and agreeing on this as Tracey Crouch (Con) and Cllr Osborne (Lab) have. This is too serious issue within the Medway towns to become a party political point scoring exercises. I truly believe the Government was wrong to vote the way it did and I fully stand by my closing statement in the piece; We, as a nation, talk a lot about looking after our servicemen and women post war and ...
Last Friday the Westborough Ward Hustings were held at the Royal British Legion in Northview Drive in the ward and myself along with four of the other candidates were questioned on a variety of subjects from our thoughts on reducing the number of councillors in the ward to what our biggest priorities are should we be elected to represent the ward on May 3. Sadly one of the candidates didn't show up. David John Glover one of the two independents didn't make an appearance and no apologies were given but the incumbent independent was there as well as the Labour ...
Liberal Democrat councillors on Herts County Council were astonished to be asked to agree the appointment of a 'procurement advisor' at a meeting today - over two years into a major programme to cut costs. HCC spends around £800m per year on contracts and Lib Dems have long argued the need for better value and an end to automatic price increases by contractors. Yet only now is an expert on buying actually coming in. 'The ink is already drying on new highways contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds, yet after the event the Tories want to get someone on ...
There's always a debate as to the extent that politicians' family should be fair game for media coverage. There seems to be a general consensus that their children should be off-limits. Mind you, that didn't stop Caroline Spelman's 17-year-old son being pitched into the national limelight recently. (However, in that case there appear to be justifiable reasons for coverage). Over the last week, we have seen a number of stories concerning UK politicians' fathers and wives (or, more correctly, wife). The Guardian led last week with a story about David Cameron late father's financial arrangements. Yesterday, the Telegraph 'exposed' George ...
Ok so I'm single. I'm 28. I work from home and don't exactly hit the town hard at the weekends. I am prime what you'd call 'online dating' territory. I have flitted about on some of these over the years to a varying degree of success. Well when I say that what I basically mean is in general no success at all but it has led to the odd amusing moment. Last week some American guy was in all the papers because he kept a spreadsheet of all the people had contacted via Match.com and a lot of people berated ...
So, despite all Boris Johnson's denials, it was only ever about dounbling the size of Brent Cross. This is the proposal that includes road changes that would be a disaster for Dollis Hill and Brent, bring 29,000 more cars on our roads, and threatens us with a massive dump and an energy from waste plant chucking out heaven knows what. The greenwash by the developers claimed thousands of new jobs and homes, but none of that was ever a firm commitment. Those jobs were pie in the sky two decades away. Now, as Boris blithely put it, Hammersons want to ...
Tory MP Nadine Dorries just agreed with a BBC TV interviewer that David Cameron and George Osborne are "two posh boys who don't know the price of milk". She then said that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are "two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others, and that is their real crime". No remorse and no contrition for what? For implementing the policies of the Conservative Party? "Their real crime" - if she really hates her own party's leaders that much, then why does she remain ...
The Trafford Centre is an undeniably impressive place. I could see its large glass dome from the motorway. The areas allotted for car parking are vast. I went in along with my other half via an signpost marked "The Orient": this was followed by a set of tall columns and a stone statue bearing gilded ...
So having watched all the episodes of this so far, I feel moved to make a couple of observations:The men are held to much lower standards than the women in terms of the range they are expected to have - range in terms of notes, and range in terms of style. Nobody seems to think this is odd. The most obvious example of this is the guy who sang a mediocre version of Rocket Man and got all four judges turning round, while the girl who sang Nessun Dorma and CANED IT got NONE of them, even though she was ...
St. George's Day. As any one of my personal acquaintance would know, this is not a day I respect. On many subjects I am a rational person with a healthy scepticism. I like evidence-based science. I find religion fascinating but ultimately false. I enjoy reasoned arguments from others and like to try and keep my beliefs consistent. But on the subject of patriotism, reason leaves me and is instead replaced with the sort of passion others seem to reserve for their deities. And my form of patriotism is not one rooted in popular culture. It's my own brand mixing royalism, ...
Monday: Surprisingly, the answer is NOT "when it's AJAR" because it's actually the OPPOSITE of ajar, it's a DELAYING TACTIC designed to hold the door to democracy CLOSED just that little bit longer. The people who are AGAINST a democratically elected House of Lords KNOW that no one in their right minds would vote "NO" to Lords reform. So it is CLEAR that they are angling to SHIFT the debate OFF the simple, central fact: "if you're going to make laws over me I have a RIGHT to a say in whether your fluffy bottom gets a shiny red seat!" ...
The Department for Work and Pensions warns that many final salary schemes have already closed down and those that survive will be closed to new entrants within six years. The average defined contribution pot - the pension now replacing the more generous final salary scheme - is £26,000. At current rates, this fund would buy a Joint life 50%, 3% escalation annuity of less than £1000 per year. One in six people retiring this year have not saved into a private pension or accumulated other assets, so will see their salaries replaced with the state pension only. To provide for ...
The War is Dead, Long Live the War (review by John Simpson) "Moderately decent people are out of their depth when they come face to face with the unquestionably wicked, and rarely react with the necessary toughness. 1992 was a repeat of 1938. We failed yet again to learn from history." (tags: bosnia ) Checkpoint Charlie and the hot dog vendors When history and property development clash. (tags: coldwar germany ) What the U.S. can't learn from Finland about education reform It's the inequality, stupid. (tags: usa finland ) Citizen engagement - a howNOTto - Milena Popova The flaws of ...
Mon 23rd
10:45Psst! Whatever you do, don't tell the Tories democratic reform is in their own best interests
A few weeks ago I wrote an article for Conservative Home offering some unsolicited advice to David Cameron's party. I argued that a party that had achieved electoral success in the 1980s by appealing to the classless entrepreneurialism of aspirant 'Middle England' had once again become established in the electorate's eyes as the party of established wealth and privilege. If the Tories want to regain the voters they have lost, they need to take drastic action to counter that view. Reform of the House of Lords was one policy area I said the Tories should seek to make their own, ...
Mon 23rd
10:08
Why the budget shows good politics for the Lib Dems: breaking Westminster rules and sticking to the ...
The Lib Dems tried to call the budget a 'robin hood' budget. If you said that to a member of the public today they would probably laugh in your face for the public perception is the exact opposite, whether this is true or not. But what has happened following the budget shows why the rules ...
Over the weekend I have seen comments from a couple of Conservative MPs who in the context of the potential change to the Lords to a (partially) elected and proportional system are stating that the public rejected a form of proportional representation in the referendum last year. Here is Elainor Laing, MP for Epping Forest quoted in The Independent on Saturday: "What Conservative MPs are angry about is that Nick Clegg's Bill [will] create in effect a new House of Commons to be elected by proportional representation. Less than a year ago, the British people rejected PR in a referendum." ...
Spring has come to Estonia, and it is like the lights have been switched on after the long (overlong) winter. As always, your heart leaps as the huge chains of migrating geese take to the skies, and here and there a newly arrived solitary stork wanders along the field gullies looking for frogs. The grass visibly greens from day to day, and the floors of the budding forest are bright with snow drops and the primrose-like blue flowers, known rather prosaically in Estonian as "blue flowers". Soon the swallows too will be here and the white nights of June will ...
From BBC News online: Nick Clegg has urged politicians from all parties to "get on with" reforming the House of Lords, despite disquiet among Conservative MPs over the plans...In an interview with BBC One's Sunday Politics, Mr Clegg said: "The principle that people who make the laws of the land should be elected by the laws of the land would strike most people in the country as fairly uncontroversial. "It's something we have been talking about for 100 years. We should just get on with it now, with minimum fuss." "Our priority is rescuing the economy but it doesn't mean ...
20 years ago the reaction to anything adverse in Liverpool was always the same. The city would march, demonstrate, petition and whinge. Whether it was a Government cut, a private sector closure or even bad weather it did the same. ... Continue reading →
So, there I was, in my parents' living room on Saturday afternoon and suddenly the awful realisation hit me. I'd been urging everyone else to respond to the Federal Conference Committee's hasty consultation on the Sussex Police's request for an accreditation system for our Autumn Conference in Brighton. I'd blogged on it, twice, for sure, but not actually sent the e-mail off. So, as soon as I got home, I sent the following e-mail to them. Dear FCC Before I get into the substance of my argument, I'd like to say that I do have some sympathy for the dilemma ...
There have been no posts on keynesianliberal for the past week as I have been walking in the Peak District with, among others, some French friends. They all companied of feeling over-exposed to reportage of the presidential election campaign so clearly they were not political anoraks. Equally none expressed any support for President Sarkozy or Marie le Pen, so they were not a representative sample. They all, however, expressed firm intentions to vote. We now know that the turnout was just over 80%, which compares very healthily with the 65.1% achieved in Britain in 2010, although this was an improvement ...
Hot on the heels of news that the prosecution of Peter Hain could cost the taxpayer £300,000, the Independent tells us today that the former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, will have his legal bills paid by the taxpayer in any court case over the "rendition" of terror suspects. The paper reminds us that a Libyan military commander wants to sue Mr Straw over suspected British involvement in the chain of events that led to him being tortured by Muammar Gaddafi's regime: Abdelhakim Belhaj's lawyers claim Mr Straw signed papers that facilitated his rendition, at the same time that the government ...
Nick Clegg faced Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics, and set out his views on a range of issues — including the row over some Tory MPs' wish to ditch their Coalition Agreement pledge on Lords reform, George Osborne's controversial budget, Cornish Lib Dems' 'pasty tax'-opposing leaflet, and that Michael Brown donation. Here's the full 15-minute interview: (Available on the BBC website here.) * Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.
Later this year, in the cavernous Great Hall of the People in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the new top leadership of China will be unveiled. The so-called fourth generation will be stepping down — thanks to a two five-year term rule and retirement at the age of 69 — and we will know who are the fresh ...
Apprenticeships in Cambridge City are on the increase with 2,190* people joining a training programme between August 2011 and January 2012. This new figure comes on top of record numbers of apprentices in the city last year - 1,630 apprentices were on a training programme in 2011/12 an increase of 53 per cent on the previous year. The news has been welcomed by Liberal Democrat Cambridge MP Julian Huppert who says the programmes are vital if people are to be given the chance of full-time employment. "Apprenticeships are extremely valuable in teaching our people the skills which employers are looking ...
Apprenticeships in Cambridge are on the increase with 2,190* people joining a training programme between August 2011 and January 2012. This new figure comes on top of record numbers of apprentices in the city last year - 1,630 apprentices were on a training programme in 2011/12 an increase of 53 per cent on the previous year. The news has been welcomed by Cambridge MP Julian Huppert who says the programmes are vital if people are to be given the chance of full-time employment. "Apprenticeships are extremely valuable in teaching our people the skills which employers are looking for in new ...
Lib Dem Stockport recycles more than any other metropolitan borough in the country – and we're in the top five of all councils. That's not just good for the environment, it pays too. So far residents of Stockport have benefited to the tune of over £5 million. That money helps us freeze Council Tax and avoid the cuts to front-line services many other councils are making. We're also national leaders on solar panels – thousands of Stockport Homes properties and many Council buildings now have solar panels – that will bring in money over time, cut electricity bills for many ...
I have today welcomed the news that, following my long campaign to improve the terrible road surface in Hillcrest Road, the City Engineer has confirmed that substantial repairs will be carried out next month :The works programmed for Hillcrest Road are being carried out under the annual structural patching programme. The works comprise of a 40mm full width patch for approximately ¾ of the street (150m), starting at Blackness Avenue going west towards Marchfield Road. The works are programmed to start Monday 21 May 2012.In my view, and the view of residents in Hillcrest Road, this roadway must be amongst ...
HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL TEMPORARY CLOSING OF VARIOUS ROADS IN ST ALBANS NOTICE is given that the Hertfordshire County Council intend to make an Order under Section 14[1] of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, to prohibit all traffic from using the following lengths of roads, except for access:- 1. that length of Waverley Road, St Albans from its junction with Palfrey Close north eastwards to its junction with Townsend Drive, a distance of approximately 105 metres. 2. that length of Townsend Drive, St Albans from its junction with Waverley Road south eastwards to its junction with Heath Avenue, a distance of approximately ...
