You know how it is sometimes, when in a moment of weakness, you say, "Oh yes, I'll serve on that committee, it shouldn't take up much of time.", only to discover that there's rather more to it than meets the eye. Well, for me, it's the European Selection Committee for the East of England. Last month, it was noted at a meeting of the Suffolk County Co-ordinating Committee that we were supposed to nominate someone to serve on the Selection Committee, and that we hadn't had a volunteer. Noting my experience in this particular field, I let my name go ...
One of the benefits of the Olympics has been a series of fascinating programmes about London. One of the best has been the BBC2 series 'The Secret History of our Streets' which has taken a road somewhere in London and shown how it has changed over the years. The series takes as its start Charles ...
Last week the Guardian ran a series of articles on the Channel Islands, covering both the lack of a proper response to allegations if child abuse on Jersey and the Barclay brothers' apparent attempt to dominate life on Sark. They featured our own Tom McNally in the role of a governor general paying a rare visit to a remote and troublesome archipelago. Perhaps the most serious topic raise was the allegation that an American journalist has been banned from the UK and the Channel Islands because she was writing a book about child abuse on Jersey. Leah McGrath Goodman tells ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 280th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (24-30 June, 2012), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can 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. Once again Lib ...
The last few weeks have been ones of absolutely frenetic offline activity for me — three periods of having houseguests staying and three extended trips to other cities in a six week or so period, followed by a bout of illness and a medical emergency in my wife's family, all while coming up against a ...
As widely expected, the Union Inn in Leicester Road, Market Harborough (which will always be the Six Packs to me), has been bought by Brooke House College to provide student accommodation. Confirmation of this comes at the end of a Harborough Mail story about the college also buying and converting the town's old Trades and Labour Club. Rather improbably, this new facility was opened by the Bulgarian ambassador to Britain.
Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. Many apologies that we are a day late with this but I'm afraid that I just couldn't tear myself away from the Murray match last night. The roof at centre court has certainly helped to provide three successive nights of excitement. 1. School TermsNotts County Council have decided to alter the length of the Spring Term from next year, so that from now on the spring term will always be a set length, irrespective of ...
Filed under: Blogging, photography
Still in Grandad mode today, another first for me and I suspect my grand daughter, the Preston and East Kent Show, marvellous a sort of manageable County Show, plenty of variety not too big and not to small, can't really tell what a two year old makes of it all, driving out into the countryside, to a make shift car park, in a field, then queueing up, to pay for the privilege, dodging the rain, beer tent, fun fair, vintage cars, lorries, tractors and steam tractors. I think a special mention should go to Preston Village Society, tea tent, nice ...
[Originally posted at Dale&Co, 30/06/12] My first reaction on hearing the news that the FSA has fined Barclays for a piece of sharp practice was little more than a raised eyebrow. After all, it's hardly the first time. We've become rather inured to it. It was only in April this year that Barclays had to set aside an extra $300million - on top of the existing provision of £1bn - to compensate the victims of mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance. And Wednesday's fine may not even be the only sanction handed to the bank this week, if the FSA's report on ...
How would you organise A&E if you had the responsibility? Well if someone has an accident or an emergency then it is really important to make sure you provide a good service and to make sure that your service is not too far from the people who have the accidents and the emergencies. However today's Sunday Politics in the North West considered the loss of Burnley's A&E as a possible template for other towns. Accidents can range from minor injuries (and some towns have lost their A&E to a minor injuries unit and some to nothing at all) to life-threatening ...
Breaking News from the BBC Marcus Agius is to resign as the chairman of Barclays, the BBC has learned. There will be an announcement on Monday morning, BBC business editor Robert Peston says. It comes after Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate. * Newshound sets the agenda, as you would expect from a Red Setter
Some of the first reggae songs to trouble the UK singles chart were novelty records. There were, for instance, Boris Gardiner's Elizabethan Reggae in 1970 and this one from Pluto Shervington, which made no. 6 in 1975. Dat sounds very jolly, but what is it about? Go to SongMeanings and Yabba - I instinctively trust someone called Yabba - will enlighten you: OK this is the real meaning and trust me this is what the song is about... Ozzy is working out his grocery bill to see if he has enough money to buy some weed, he cant afford to ...
Sun 1st
17:55
Should politicians decide whether or not free refills of coke are legal or not? Well one politician ...
As much as Baroness Ros riled me up last night in believing that bankers are in fact one entity she wasn't the winner of my own version of 'stupid politician making a stupid statement of the week' award. That dubious honour fell to a mayor in the United States of America. Cambridge (Massachusetts) Mayor Henrietta Davis wants to make free refills of sugary beverages illegal because they aren't exactly that good for you. You can read the full story on CNN behind the link. Speaking as she unveiled her proposals she said, "Our environment is full of way too many ...
As we set up this morning in the rain, we were all wondering just how the annual Gatley Fun Day on Gatley Hill was going to go. We needn't have worried – the rain stopped on cue and the sun even put in an appearance later on. Thanks as ever to the Gatley Festival organisers: if you haven't been involved in this sort of event, it's difficult to appreciate just how much work goes into planning and organising. I'm sure that the work will be starting shortly on preparing for the 2013 Festival. Along with myself, Mark Hunter, Pam King ...
Sometimes you read an article and your head shakes in despair and your soul tries to self-combust. This is what happened to me earlier when I read that Kerry Katona had dumped her new man because he was too dull – which is arguably a fair reason to dump a man (but it doesn't tend to lead me to be thinking I'm Kerry's guy) but more pertinently for the purposes of this blog the other reason he got the old heave ho was because he was 'too reliable.' Yes a man was just too damn reliable and that is a ...
A timely article in the Independent today makes the point we have been struggling to advocate-namely that the dominant model of ownership-the plc- is central to the problems of Britain's economy. At a time when shareholder-driven business is reeling from self inflicted wounds, mutuals - which are owned by and accountable to their customers -have been seen by many as part of the solution........... ............as Vince Cable said last week: "The destruction of the British building society movement ... was one of the great acts of economic vandalism of modern times." full article here Just as we need to up ...
"You're on the wrong side of history!" is often the shout from well-meaning supportrs of LGBT rights at opponents to whatever "progressive" measure is on the cards at that moment in time. It is a phrase which doesn't sit so well with me, as if any of us have a secret insight into how our descendants will view this fight. For all we know technological advances and parental choice may well snuff out diverse sexualities and gender identities in the next couple of hundred years. Progress in LGBT rights isn't inevitable and the fight to secure it mustn't just rely ...
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 560 party members responded, and we're publishing the full results. Today we focus on the performances of the leading lights of the Liberal Democrats — those of our MPs in the cabinet, those occupying ministerial positions, and other leading Lib Dems. LDV asked: How would you rate the performances of the following leading Liberal Democrats and government ministers? Full results are published below, but here's three key lists for those who ...
The Equality and Diversity Objectives set out how the council will tackle discrimination and promote fairness and equality, and have been developed in response to the new Public Sector Equality Duties. KCC would like to hear your views on its proposed Equality Objectives. The council will publish its final Equality Objectives and policy statement after this consultation. The consultation closes on 31 Jul 2012 at 5pm. The results will be published by 30 Oct 2012. Consultation documents are available at Published and promoted by Tim Prater, 98a Sandgate High Street, Folkestone, CT20 3BYPrinted (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 ...
LNG plant on the Isle of Grain There has been quite a stir on the Twittersphere over recent months with local resident Jack Hope (@jacklhope) bombarding local politicians/politicos for help and about the Health and Safety concerns of the village of Grain and the Liquid Gas plant in their proximity. It is something I have been meaning to look into and right about for sometime but time is constantly flitting past me without me being able to do half the things I want to do - It's now only 4 weeks until my second child is born! Any way, ...
Via Jonathan Calder, here's a sentence that tells us so much about how modern politics works: In particular, her decision not to rebel over the coalition decision to increase university tuition fees, despite building a political career on trying to get them scrapped, marked her out for promotion with the leadership of both parties.
I'm not going to read the last of this year's nominated works in the Best Graphic Story category, because for the last three years I dutifully ploughed through that year's Schlock Mercenary volume, found it dull and crudely drawn, and ranked it last (as did the Hugo voters two years of those three); and I don't see any good reason to put myself through that again. I also find it difficult to compare an entire run of a graphic story with single volumes from series with which I am familiar and also a single volume from a series that I ...
We really couldn't have asked for better weather (well, p'raps a smidgeon less wind) and the 55 stalls did good business – whether that was selling wares or just explaining and publicising the charitable work and the community projects that are going on. On of the most successful ventures was the Tring Brewery Bar at the end of the marquee. What with the noonday sun whipping up a thirst and the popularity of their products there was some Olympic-standard queuing going on! But there were cake stalls a-plenty, displays in the arena and the ever-popular ferret racing – very handsome ...
A problem with the Hugo category of Best Graphic Story is that the nominees are often very diverse in form. Here, for instance, we have the fourth of a six-volume sequence, itself consisting of six individual issues of which the first three are relatively distinct from each other and the last three more closely linked; but there is a lot of background knowledge for the new reader to pick up. I found the fourth in the sequence, involving a young boy and a ghostly soldier, particularly effective, and there is an excellent twist at the end. But there are some ...
For what this is - a short New Who book aimed at people who don't read that much - it is rather good, a story of the Tenth Doctor on his own, reprising the Krillitane plot from School Reunion with some extra wrinkles and a one-off young male sidekick who is into computers but lacks social skills. The prolific Justin Richards on a good day (it can't have taken terribly long to write).
The classic novel of 1749, whose prose style is in places a bit tedious but also in places very funny. The plot is a basic romantic comedy, but it is enlivened by the authorial asides which open each of the individual books within the novel, and by the author's grasp of character which must have inspired Dickens. There are also a couple of passages which pastiche Homer, Vergil and I think the King James Bible, and there must have been others that I missed. Some social points of the 1740s that I found interesting: women had few enough rights, but ...
Here are the five posts published on this blog between April and June that recorded the most hits: Jeremy Hunt and the limits of credulity (1st May) Economists? That'll be your problem right there (10th June) Grasping the big picture on housing (21st April) Why an Elected Mayor is a bad idea (2nd May) Beds, sheds, and regs (13th May) This has been a busy quarter for the blog. May was the highest traffic month so far, and the blog reached the ebuzzing June top 100 for politics (although it is going to drop out again in July). June ended ...
From the Northamptonshire Telegraph: Northamptonshire hawk that patrols Wimbledon is stolen Later. Good news - the hawk has been safely returned.
Doctor Who attempts to take on Babylon Five, just a little, in Yquatine, a world where humans and various alien species coexist in uneasy alliance. Except that when the Doctor arrives, it all gets destroyed, and then Fitz is warped back a couple of weeks and falls in love with the President's girlfriend as planetary doom approaches. Several ideas from this book also popped up in last year's TV Who, including the shape-shifting entities which deceptively contain the very people they look like. I enjoyed the same author's Dominion last year and I enjoyed this too. I have to say ...
This is the second selection of stuff that has caught my eye over the last few weeks, starting with Inside Swansea, who are at times have appeared obsessed with my blog but who nevertheless, provide a useful scrutiny of politics in Swansea, Wales and the occasionally the UK. In this post they highlight an uncomfortable alliance over the proposed Severn barrage, when Nick Clegg praised Peter Hain for his efforts in championing this cause: Clegg's aides later described the endorsement as "an example of cross-party vision". Everyone else present in the chamber regarded it as the kiss of death. Hain ...
Maybe it is only Sunday paper talk, but Scotland on Sunday has an article by David Maddox tipping Jo Swinson (currently Nick Clegg's parliamentary private secretary) for promotion to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland: According to a source close to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Swinson, the MP for East Dunbartonshire, who from 2005 to 2009 was the youngest MP in the House of Commons, has impressed the party leadership since the Tory-Lib Dem coalition came together in 2010. In particular, her decision not to rebel over the coalition decision to increase university tuition fees, despite building ...
Such a tantilising prospect has been suggested in today's Scotland on Sunday. Of course, this is little more than press speculation. But what David Maddox, in his article, does raise is some serious questions about government thinking and, in particular, what Clegg and Cameron see as evidence of ministerial capability. Maddox makes the predictable observation that Swinson could be promoted in an attempt by the Liberal Democrats to "end the embarrassment of having no women from their party in the cabinet". In response to this I'll make three comments of my own: a) there are other, more obvious female candidates ...
Final post in the series inspired by this article on Lifehacker "All of the research in the world won't help educate you on a controversial issue or statement if you don't look at the evidence and try to draw your own conclusions from it...............Read up on opinions for and against. Do the basic arguments make sense? Are the arguments simply ad hominems (attacks against the other side) or is there actual evidence backing up the claims? And what does the other side have to say about those claims?" These are important considerations. I'd like to see lots of debate practice ...
Britain is an expensive place to build public transport. We don't do things cheaply. The Cross River Tram proposed for London under Transport for London rapidly rose from £200m to £1.5bn and unsurprisingly was killed as a consequence. So I'm delighted to see some sanity around the costs of tram spending. Blackpool has recently completed a three year program costing £100m to rebuild 26km of tram lines, adding new signalling to 14 junctions, built a new tram depot and bought 16 new trams from Bombardier. At that sort of saner pricing trams could have a huge revival. And this is ...
A milestone reachd on my Flickr account today. My photos have now been viewed 100,000 times. In addition, there have been 20,000 viewing of my photo stream and 14,000 viewings of my sets. The most viewed photo is the one above. It is Hollinside Manor in the snow, taken a couple of years ago. Someone seems to have linked to it or embedded it on a website but unfortunately the stats don't say
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 560 party members responded, and we're publishing the full results. 80% of Lib Dem members support the Coalition Do you support or oppose the Lib Dems being in the Coalition Government with the Conservatives? (Comparison with March 2012′s figures) 80% (-1%) – Support 16% (+2%) – Oppose 4% (n/c) – Don't know / No opinion Support for the Coalition remains high, at 80%, in spite of all the difficulties it's endured ...
I have been clearing files from an old laptop, and came across the following in a document from 2009 I may have posted it before, but even so, it's worth repeating to remind myself, and others why we do the tasks ... "Councillors are elected to be an advocate for the interests of the ward, residents and community groups. They represent the interests of those individuals and groups to the Council and deal with enquiries and representations from constituents." I'm sure that I lifted the quote from another site, so thanks to whoever it was.
In grandad mode this weekend, so fairly busy, couldn't give a toot for politics, have yet to scan the Sunday papers, pleasantly surprised yesterday by the quality and variety of Wingham Wildlife Park, having driven past many, many times thinking it's something to visit later and later rarely comes. Still thankfully have one of our wonderful grand children staying for the weekend, so no excuse for sitting at home festering in front of laptop. Spent around four hours and could have spent longer, although the car park was busy, inside the park, it didn't seem overly crowded, marvellous to sit ...
So, there were no big surprises yesterday. Cancellara won his fifth Tour de France prologue, while Bradley Wiggins was the fastest of the overall contenders and Frank Schleck the slowest. There were no Delgado-esque cock-ups either, but a couple of minor incidents may have affected the final result for the stage. Tony Martin had a puncture about halfway round, which required a bike change. It's a mark of how quick and organised teams are that it may only have cost him twenty seconds in total, but that's enough to have taken him out of contention with Cancellara and dropped him ...
I find it a bit odd that four people saw fit to highlight a tweet that I ate a ham and coleslaw baguette from Greggs in Birmingham. Whereas Only two people retweeted the fact that a journalist had been banned from the UK to prevent her from writing about things. C'est la vie.
Evening stretches shadows Across the green court All to play for now No longer the luck of the draw Silence claims the crowd At love, fifteen, thirty Baseline, net, forty The roar of approval The polite applause And then the chance to settle Old scores Deuce Advantage An ace for the game New balls please With the fading light and the keener breeze All to play for now No longer the luck of the draw As evening stretches shadows Across the green court
David Rennie has been the pen behind the pseudonymous Bagehot column, which appears weekly in The Economist, since 2010. During that time he has been deservedly recognised as the most acute commentator, bar none, writing on British politics. Not that I've always agreed with him, not least his indulgence of hoary old cliches with which to whack the Lib Dems. He has now transferred to the US to personate another Economist pseudonym, Lexington. However, his final missive is a must-read 'state of the nation' take on the Britain he found when he returned two years ago, and the Britain he ...
As far as I am aware, there are two meetings at Blyth Town Council this coming week Tuesday 3rd April , 6:30 pm, at Ebor House, Events Committee Thursday 5th July, 6:30 pm, at Ebor House, Planning and Development Committee Blyth Town Council is a consultee on planning applications, we do not grant or decline applications. (It's worth reminding people of this, even some councillors!) However if you have any opinions on planning matters that you wish Blyth Town Council to pass on to the planning authority (Northumberland County Council ) contact me and I'll arrange for the views to ...
Well yesterday's prologue was interesting for a number of reasons. Tony Martin the world Time Trial champion had a mechanical which meant he ended up 23 seconds back (losing about 20 seconds to change bikes). This put him four places but on the same time as Mark Cavendish who was 40th. But Frank Schleck was 38 seconds back meaning that he did lose 31" to on of his main rivals and 21" to the defending Champion. For while Fabian Cancellera did win the stage but a full 7 seconds it was over Bradley Wiggins who will start in Green today. ...
Oh Lib Dems what are you doing to me? I sit her in my toothpaste stained jogging bottoms and a t-shirt saying 'Brain Loading...47% Please Wait' and feeling good playing Bejeweled Blitz and then I see a tweet and my anger soars to record (well that's a lie – nowhere near record levels but still I'm pretty pissed off) and why I hear you ask? Well because of this tweet from a Liberal Democrat Peer... [IMG: Baroness Ros Tweet] Lib Dems...the grown-up party – or so I thought... It seems pretty innocuous but still, 'We were told if we didn't ...
Earlier this month, I highlighted complaints from residents about the unkempt state of the roadway and verges on Riverside Drive between the rail station and the rail bridge (see right) and mentioned that I had contacted the City Council asking for action to tidy this area. I am pleased to say that the City Council has now updated me as follows: "The Environment Department has responsibility for this and they have advised that road sweeping/weeding and grass cutting works are to be programmed for verges on Riverside Drive from the rail bridge eastwards and that this will be carried out ...
Photos from the last couple of days! Was up in Inverness with the 'day job' on Friday - a lovely, warm and sunny day - although rather rainy on the way home! Here's me pictured outside the Eden Court Theatre, where the meeting I attended took place. Helen, Janet and I spent Saturday afternoon helping the MS Society's Dundee Branch with their fundraising and awareness stall in the Overgate Centre. A thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile day and great to see the interest from and generosity of the Dundee public. A busy afternoon!
The Lib Dems are generally pilloried for our approach to Europe. We like it, we support it, we promote it. That much is understood and generally misrepresented by all and sundry. I, for example, am a passionate European but I think the European Union as it is constituted is a disaster. As for the Tories, they are a running joke on Europe, with successive Tory leaders hurled onto the rack of right-wing Euroscepticism which infests their party. That much is also understood and generally enjoyed by all and sundry outside of the Tory Party. Their latest leader has proven himself ...
The Liberal Democrats' Parliamentary Candidates Association (PCA) has produced several editions of Who's Who in the Liberal Democrats, listing the parliamentary and civic achievements of leading members of the Party (or at least those who filled in the necessary form, as is indeed the case with 'the' Who's Who). But I can't help feeling that ...
