This classic book is fifty years old; it was first published in 1962. Young F absorbed it with enthusiasm a few months back, and now I have reread it properly; of course I first read it when I was almost as old as Meg, some time in the late 1970s, and was a bit bemused by what I now see as a nicely observed family dynamic, but also able to relate to both Meg and Charles Wallace as geeks. (An odd coincidence: my grandmother's name was Margaret Murray.) Reading it now, I was more interested to identify a political agenda ...
'Young, Bright and on the Right,' the story of two aspiring young Tories at Oxford and Cambridge, definitely made for some entertaining television. Joe and Chris inspire a mixture of loathing, pity and bewilderment as they struggle to navigate the ... Continue reading →
I mean it is not like I have already successfully ordered 25 of these, and received my first batches of them. But it appears that between gold number 25 and 26-28 we have been cast out of the United Kingdom by the Royal Mail at least...
This week's Olympic experience has been all about the women's football competition. I'd secured tickets to see one of the semifinals on Monday and for the final yesterday. Both at Wembley. Obviously I've been following the fortunes of team GB and was hoping for a chance to get to see them in the stadium so I was disappointed when they went out to Canada in the quarter-finals. This despite playing strongly and winning lots of new fans. So instead my loyalties ended up switching to the team from Japan who I watched beat France in the semis and then lose ...
It is hard to believe that there are now less than 24 hours of these Olympics left. But after another day with a lack of gold the penultimate day of competition saw Team GB extending their success. So after the first stamps issued on a Sunday by the Royal Mail last week there will be more tomorrow. First up just as many may have been sitting down to breakfast the last day at Eton Dorney saw yet another gold medal on that stretch of water. It may only have come over the last 200m and therefore the last 10% of ...
In Leicester today, I went to Greyfriars to see if there was any sign of the dig to find Richard III's bones. Sure enough, the road was up and there was a mechanical digger on site, Sadly, this had nothing to do with archaeology. Still, the Leicester District Energy Scheme is admirable in its way.
Nick Clegg made a statement on Monday announcing that the government was going to drop Lords Reform, due to the fact that Cameron can't control his backbenchers. Nick Clegg started fighting back over Lords Reform by saying that since Lords Reform has been dropped, the LibDems will vote against the Boundary Proposals when they come ...
Bend It Like Beckham is a film I have always wanted to see but somehow missed when it was on general release. So I was delighted that the organisersof the Doha film season showing at Bayt Qatar — Qatar's Olympic House in London — included it in their programme of sports-related movies this afternoon. It ...
Mark Thompson writes on the disqualification of candidates from November's police and crime commissioner elections because of youthful misdemeanours: "I find it intensely depressing that such illiberal laws can be passed through our parliament without any real understanding of how ridiculous the consequences of said laws will actually be in practice from those who are supposed to be legislative experts." "The best way forward is for schools, government et al. to encourage children to join sports clubs and groups to learn their sports properly. If the government wants to increase young sport, it should channel the funds to those groups, ...
We're having a lot of fun in Britian with the 2012 Olympics, and especially here in London. That's rather wonderful in its own right – but as usual people are using the occasion to push forward their political agendas. And the obvious agenda to push is funding for sports, and the promotion of sport in schools. Any number of half-baked ideas are being floated, including by our Prime Minister, David Cameron. In particular Mr Cameron thinks that the focus that his school (Eton) had on team sports would be a good idea for everybody. Compulsory competive school sports would be ...
There's no prize at stake - just the opportunity to prove you're wittier than any other LDV reader... Here's Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg meeting rapper Tinchy Stryder and music producer and rapper Dirty Dangerous, who tweeted this picture on Thursday: In the team gb house chilling with my bro tinchystryder and my boynick clegg he's really cool guy 👍 instagr.am/p/OHbulJFpAo/ — DIRTDAVID RUFF SQWAD (@dirtdavid) August 9, 2012 voice - voice.hat.libdemvoice.org.spam.com (this is spam bot hidden email address, replace .hat. with @ and remove .spam.com for the real one).
Queen Edith's Liberal Democrats invite you to a summer "Olympic" barbecue Where? 75 Cavendish Avenue CB1 7UR When? Saturday 11 August 6-8.30pm Why? Share Olympic athletic finals indoors or escape them outside while helping raise funds for Focus with a Raffle Who? Lib Dem supporters, children welcome (please bring an outdoor game or other entertainment) What? BBQ - vegetarians catered for. Soft drinks provided, BYO alcohol. How much? £10 per adult £3 per child Tickets from Derek & Jean 248319 or jsswanson@ntlworld.com Hoping summer will have arrived but it will happen even if it rains
Chuffed to hear that Transport for London is going to spend £40m converting all 900 wet film cameras to digital technology. This should see a step increase in enforcement. Digital technology has massive capacity compared to wet cameras. Wet cameras are End of Life making them an increasingly problematic maintenance issue. They're also considering such technology to help enforce 20mph. Will produce a digital speed map allowing Intelligent Speed Adaptation trials in a suitable fleet. Hopefully Southwark's fleet of vehicles will be volunteered.
The modern Liberal Democrats are a fairly odd fusion of quite a few variants of the liberal tradition and two brands of social democracy. Couple this with a democratic party structure where anyone and everyone has an equal ability to speak, make policy and vote for the leader and what you end up with is quite a few factions within the party. So I've decided to do a series of posts looking at the various factions in order to do an overview of each of them and their influence within the party. However, I should preface this by saying that, ...
Via The Independent: Nick Clegg will allow Parliament to go further in its plans to legalise gay marriage and enable churches and other religious institutions to conduct the ceremonies, The Independent has learned... In a letter to the Quakers, Unitarian and Free Christian churches and Liberal Judaism, who all want to conduct same-sex marriages, Mr Clegg indicated that religious groups could be given the option. He said: "No religious organisation who does not wish to conduct a same-sex marriage should be forced to do so. But religious liberty means allowing those churches and organisations who want to open their doors ...
One of the best speeches given by a Liberal Democrat Cabinet Member in the last year was Danny Alexander's to the GMB conference. It was not only a good speech, it went down well with a tough audience that disagrees strongly with many things the government is doing. As I wrote at the time: There is a touch of irony about that as the speech came from someone who has attracted rather a reputation amongst some party members for sounding much too keen much too often on Conservative policies in media interviews. This was instead the Danny Alexander who won ...
Unsurprisingly, both the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties have decided to go ahead with selecting candidates for the 2015 general election based on the current constituency boundaries. Where does that leave the Conservatives? In rather a tricky position given David Cameron's talk of still pressing on hoping to win the boundaries vote. All three options that leaves his party with are far from good. Option one: copy the other two parties and select candidates based on existing boundaries. That undermines the talk of still hoping to win the boundaries vote, opening up Cameron to criticisms that not even his own ...
As if to underline our efficacy in vetoing the new constituency boundaries, the Liberal Democrats have let it be known that they will be selecting their candidates to fight the next election on the basis of current Westminster constituencies. The Independent say that it is now only the Conservative Party that is pressing ahead with plans to select candidates and campaign on the basis of the revised boundaries. That could present problems for the party if David Cameron loses the vote on the issue when it is debated in the House of Commons late next year or in 2014. The ...
A new development was approved and granted planning permission some time ago. 1-4 Poppy Mews and 105 & 107 Barry Road. Its hasjust finished and lots of viewings from potential new East Dulwich residents. Welcome. It was one of the few local planning meetings I missed and I was surprised at council officials recommending off-street parking. This section of Underhill Road had sufficient of on-street parking and proposed carports permanently remove on-street parking to make way for drives. As a consequence the gardens were planned to be very small with what space was left. This picture shows the pickle we ...
How Your Sweet Valley High gets made Ghostwriter tells all! (tags: writing ) Close Obama ally rated worst ambassador in the State Department How not to be an ambassador! (tags: southsudan usa ) Georgian Opposition Claims Repression ...government getting too nervous to be subtle? (tags: georgia )
Last night (Friday 11th August) I went to see the Olympics men's basketball semi-final. Spain and Russia are probably about equal in skill levels - perhaps Spain were the favourites. I therefore supported the Russians! Both teams warming up When the game started Russia appeared to want the win more. The first two quarters were won relatively easily by Russia 12 - 9 and 19 - 11 giving them an advantage of 11 points. Russia now on the attack As the third quarter began it looked as if the Spain coach had spotted that they needed to pass the ball ...
As the Olympics comes to an end it risks being overshadowed, almost straight away, by politicians. To carry on the legacy of the Olympics, I agree that sport should be promoted to the young, in established and rarer sports. How ... Continue reading →
When people look at the good things that the Lib Dems did for Liverpool in our 12 years of control they can clearly see the tangible things such as £1 billion for housing; £2.5billion in the city Centre; Capital of ... Continue reading →
Stumbling and Mumbling: The anti-capitalist Olympics (tags: ) How to lose followers on Twitter - a helpful guide for lawyers and legal journalists | Opinion | The Lawyer (tags: ) In Israel, new modesty glasses for Orthodox Jewish men blur women out of their line of sight - NY Daily News A great development for freedom! Now women can tell prying fellas to go get some blurry specs and stop bothering them when they get accosted for not dressing modestly enough... (tags: ) The Singularity is not coming Sadly, this is probably right. (tags: ) Can the Olympics really provide ...
Sat 11th
09:51
The Independent View: Could Europe be an unlikely area of consensus for the revamped Coalition 2.0?
Following the bad blood within the coalition over the collapse of Lords reform and the constituency boundary review, there has been much speculation that the two parties will enact a policy 'reset' after conference season, with Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander already reportedly working out the details. Most people looking for potential fresh common ground between Tories and Lib Dems would hardly place 'Europe' at the top of their list. However, while the parties are unlikely to ever see eye to eye on the EU, given political will, there are a number of areas of potential agreement. For example, both ...
According to all the US media reports, Mitt Romney will announce his pick as his Vice Presidential candidate today and it is set to be Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan is pretty well known in the US as chair of the House of Representatives Budget Committee and author of an alternative budget that aims to slim down the size of the US government. It's a well worked out plan (if you like that sort of thing) and he's a good communicator. He's also a favourite of the tea party and will reassure those on the right that Romney meant what he ...
The deteriorating condition of Queen Victoria Works As reported in The Courier today, I have welcomed the City Council's announcement that it is resurrecting the working party to look at derelict buildings in the city, but have said it requires more input from outside the City Council itself. Many months ago, I raised the need to resurrect a group to tackle empty and derelict buildings in the city with the Chief Executive of Dundee City Council, and was pleased that he agreed to my request. However, we need to see real action on this issue and I do feel that ...
Overall I'm not a huge fan of the vast reams of political analysis churned out in the British media, because far too often it tells you plenty about who the writer would vote for in an election today and not very much else. Discovering journalist X is very keen on party Y and really doesn't like party Z is, at best, a one-shot piece of information. Next time I read something from X I really do want to find out something different. Even worse, the analysis is often based on a fairly limited display of knowledge. Sometimes that is for ...
It's early morning. You're half awake as you listen to a discussion about tackling gang crime on the radio. Who is on? Someone from the police, a victim, perhaps a politician – and very often, an ex-gang member who has turned into a zealous and effective crime-fighter. It isn't just about gangs: across many areas of crime there is fantastic work being done by criminals who have repented. Does that mean I trust all ex-criminals? Of course not. Does it mean some ex-criminals know an awful lot more about how to fight crime than most of us? Absolutely. Which is ...
There has been a lot of noise in the last few days about how terrible it is that Bob Ashford has been barred from standing as a Labour candidate to become a Police and Crime Commissioner in Avon and Somerset due to a crime he was convicted of when he was 13 years old 46 years ago. This is because of a rule that was included in the bill that created the positions whereby a candidate cannot stand if they have ever been convicted of an offence that could have resulted in them being sent to prison (even if they ...
Sat 11th
08:5569% of Lib Dem members say London right to bid to host the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics
Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we're publishing the full results. 11.5% swing in favour of the Olympics among Lib Dem members! LDV asked: All things considered and with the benefit of hindsight, do you think London should or should not have bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games? (Compared with June 2012 results in brackets.) 69% (+12%) – It should 23% (-11%) – It should not 8% (-2%) ...
One. Oh, all right then, probably two. Out of 20,000 schools. I do hate this Telegraph nonsense. It's based on aged right-wing numpties who know precious little about primary schools, making assinine assumptions and then Cameron jumping on the bandwagon to take a tilt at non-existent windmills. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
...is Paul Ryan. It would have been Portman or Pawlenty or any other safe boring white guy but Romney is now well behind in the polls, so he needs a game changer. (Where have I heard that one before?) The trouble is that Ryan next door to Romney will point up all the things that are lacking in Romney. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
It would appear Nick Clegg hasn't given up on reaching for the stars. In a move that would make sense, given that the Scottish Government will be pushing forward for both religious and civil marriage equality, he has again restated Liberal Democrat policy that both should be introduced here in England and Wales. Sadly, for those of us who want to see this too, it's quite clear he isn't speaking on behalf of the Government but simply personally as a Liberal Democrat. "It is Liberal Democrat party policy, and my personal view, that those organisations who do wish to conduct ...
Lots of people know about the Stonewall Riots but less people know about the homophile movement, including such groups as the Mattachine Society, who were around at the same time. The reason for this is that the Stonewall riots were not approved of by these more mainstream LG organisations. This disapproval ultimately cost the homophiles the support of LGBT people in great numbers as they, rightly, regarded the Stonewall riots as just violence against unjust actions by the local authorities. Ever since then there has been a great deal of conflict between LGBT folk willing to take radical action (such ...
Details of a seminar on the Integrated Children's Services Plan is taking place on 28th August:You can download a high-quality PDF version of this poster here.
