It's only a few months since my, er..., interesting experience of turning up to do some Liberal Democrat campaigning and being given a task by award-winning campaigner Robin Meltzer: You have a delivery round stuffed full of properties that have just had railings, gates and doors painted in black paint. So you wait until someone turns up in a black suit to give them the delivery round, don't you? And of course, when the delivery round also has the little trap for the numerically conventional of numbers 1 and 2 on one road being located between numbers 60 and 61, ...
Two years ago, a bunch of smart people told the BBC that its plans to build iPlayer for Android on Adobe Flash was nuts. We argued loudly, passionately, deployed logic and reason, and provided specific technical details. Naturally, we were ignored. Sure, Flash was only on a few high end devices now, but the BBC were confident that Flash would be soon be available on all Android devices and our perceived problems would evaporate. Naturally, reality decided to ignore their wishful thinking. Two years and one week after the BBC announced its Flash for Android strategy, Adobe announced it was ...
I read Paul Ryan's budget called ' The Path to Prosperity' today and, if I was old enough, I would have had a stiff gin and tonic straight afterwards. What he sets out as conditions for a 'Path to Prosperity' could easily be translated into a 'Path to Poverty'. It is a slash and burn budget that can only be described as widening the gap between rich and poor so much that both groups will only bear a ridiculous resemblance to each other along the lines of martians from Mars being taught by humans on how to pilot spaceships. He ...
I often wonder, whether Thanet Council is unique, with its sometime complacent attitude to residents and apparent hostility to free and democratic media, still drawn to a blog with the snappy title of "Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more" after a reference in the current addition of Private Eye to the blog's author Jacqui Thompson. Well reading this story from that blog would indicate that Thanet Council are not alone in the attitude to, we the people. As my readers will be aware, I recently had cause to complain, when challenged by the councils security guard, I emailed Sue McGonical Chief ...
Local county councillor Chris White (St Peter's and Clarence wards) has tracked down the mysterious disappearing ticket machine that used until a few weeks ago to service First Capital Connect passengers using the City Station from the Ridgmont Road side. 'I asked FCC what on earth had happened to it. After much deliberation they told me – they've moved it to Radlett! 'Apparently Radlett passengers had been complaining about a lack of ticket machines and so they supplied them with an extra one. No doubt the complaints were justified. 'What cannot be justified is sorting a problem at one station ...
The Friends of Ram Hill Colliery will once again be holding an open day as part of the South Glos Heritage Weekend. It will run from 10.30am to 4.30pm on Sunday 9th September and light refreshments will be available. If you fancy getting more involved, why not join them for a work day, 10am-4pm on Wednesdays and the second Sunday of the month from April to October. Or attend their next committee meeting at 7.30pm on Monday 3rd September 2012 in the Miners Institute Coalpit Heath.
Mon 13th
19:33
So who will make the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist? Lets have an early look...
Last year many people were up in arms that there were no women on the SPOTY shortlist. Well this year that won't be the case but I thought I'd have a look at how things stand for the annual event in December: The following are in without any shadow of a doubt: Bradley Wiggins – The guy became the first British winner of the Tour de France. He didn't need to win Olympic gold to get on this list but he did anyway. Wiggins is a no doubter and is the favourite and rightly so. The TdF is an insane ...
I wrote this back in September 2009 as In dejection near Polly Toynbee. Polly Toynbee had a column in the Guardian yesterday extolling Labour's bright new generation and the party's achievements in Lambeth: all around us are good Labour legacies of money well spent: the new school sports hall, the new primary school on Brixton Hill, nine new children's centres, health clinics, squads of neighbourhood police, and a spectacular sixth-form college next door to my home.I was struck by her celebration of buildings rather than the life that goes on in them. The sixth-form college may be "spectacular", but does ...
Mon 13th
19:15
Lords Reform; Boundary Changes; State funding for Political Parties. Are they really worth the same?
When Lords Reform was dropped, in the far off days days when The Daily Telegraph was asking whether we would ever win a Gold medal at The Olympics, rightly or wrongly we decided that Boundary Changes had a roughly equal value to the Tories as Lords Reform did for the Lib Dems, and we would therefore cancel one out in revenge for the other. This may or may not be true - there are some Tories who will undoubtably be delighted that their constituencies are safe - but David Cameron's reluctance to drop the legislation in the face of hopeless ...
It's August, so I'm not going to take too seriously kite-flying suggestions by Benedict Brogan in the Telegraph that Nick Clegg might consider rescinding his threat that the Lib Dems will vote against boundary changes (following the Tories' decision to break the Coalition Agreement over Lords reform) in return for a deal on party funding which would include state aid for political parties: Here's how it was presented to me: over the next year or so Mr Clegg will find a way to back the boundary review when it comes up for a vote in the Commons. In exchange, Mr ...
Please find below the housing policy resolution for our Lib Dem Conference in Brighton. It's radical, achievable and puts clear blue water between us and the Tory and Labour parties. Conference notes with concern that the historic failure to create ... Continue reading →
This is the eighth of the original 14-volume Oxford History of England, originally published in 1936 but revised in 1959. I can't very easily count the number of books I have read recently about Elizabeth right now; this is one of the major attempts to summarise what was then known about her. I was disappointed in Black's treatment of Ireland, squashed into the last chapter and a half and very much treated from an entirely English perspective. However, I found some welcome strengths: in particular, I haven't seen as good an exploration anywhere else of the English policies of Spain, ...
A less commonly asked quiz question that naming a murdered British Prime Minister, though both have the same answer – for Spencer Perceval was both PM and Chancellor at the time of his murder. His death was the subject of a recent short 15 minute documentary which you can still watch via the iPlayer until 3:09pm on 21 August. (Why 3:09pm? Someone knows, I'm sure. But not me.) Watch it here.
Only in Britain could we end up having a debate about success and its ongoing legacy that sounds both ambitious (let's seize the moment) and a like a moan (well we won't do as well again)! Of course it is right that we start the debate now and ride the momentum whilst sport is on the front pages and the nation is discussing more than football. Of course, participation is the key goal but evidence shows that the presence of an Olympics alone does not create a huge change in a nation's physical activity. But if you just concentrate the ...
Had there been an Olympic sport of beekeeing, yesterday I would have been in contention for a medal in the race to inspect as many hives as possible in one afternoon. We managed to check all 8 of ours in under two hours. Surely a record! And so to the closing ceremony of the Olympics. The curtain came down on the games with an extravaganza of British music from the past 50 years. Alas, whilst I
I was so impressed with Danny Boyle's Opening Ceremony to the London2012 Olympics that I thought I must watch the Closing Ceremony as well, though alas it did not live up to expectations. I know it was intended to be of a different nature — more of an after-party than a perfomance – and it did look ...
The office wall in one of my former jobs had a cartoon with two drunks slumped in an alleyway bemoaning their fate. One was saying to the other, "It all started to go wrong when I realised the backups hadn't been working..." He at least had been trying to use backups. Sometimes people fear trusting data to computers, worried that a wrong key press may result in valuable information being lost. That is to get things wrong: data is safer on computers because it is much easier to do regular backups. Data stored any other way is difficult to backup; ...
My apologies to those of you who have had difficulties accessing this site over the last day or so. I've just moved hosting provider, from 123-reg, to SG Internet Services in an attempt to improve the responsiveness of this blog. Over the last few months, I seem to have been plagued by http 500 errors and other periods of downtime, so I've finally had enough and upped sticks. I didn't think anyone would notice as I chose the last day of the Olympics to make the change. However, a couple of people did contact me in the few hours that ...
Blood values: HB 10.5 WBC 3.5 Platelets 423 No value for neutrophils, but consultant said that with the other figures OK, it wasn't a matter of concern. I pressed him on the expectation of useful life and he said 2-3 years from diagnosis, ie 1-2 years from now. After that myelofibrosis develops into full-blown leukemia, requiring frequent transfusions and daily hospital visits. But susceptibility to infections increases, so it may not be leukemia itself that delivers the coup de grace. Sounds as though the quality of life would be a bit sub-standard, but until then I should be more or ...
Preparations for a 2013 Folkestone Air Show are underway, organiser Folkestone Town Centre Management Ltd (FTCM) has announced. Branded as Folkestone Airshow, it will take place on Saturday June 8th, the middle day of an action-packed weekend which will also include ground displays, exhibitions, entertainment, family fun and children's activities. With Folkestone town centre manager John Barber in overall charge of arrangements, FTCM has appointed a dedicated project team to plan and promote the event. Project manager responsible for day-to-day planning and marketingis Yvonne Holder, previously co-ordinator of Shepway District Council's Inspiring Communities and East Folkestone Together programmes. Matt Davidson ...
The newly formed Botanic Gardens Community Association want your help in deciding on possible uses for the old museum building, and on activities to hold in Botanic Gardens. Please take a few moments to help by filling in the simple questionnaire. Botanic Gardens questionnaire is here Questionnaire produced by Botanic Gardens Community Association.
As if two Labour candidates for Police and Crime Commissioner posts running into problems with past misdeeds wasn't enough, now a third is set to defy the ban on magistrates standing: Lee Barron, the Labour candidate for the new post, has revealed how is prepared to refuse to stand down as a magistrate before the election, which will be held in November. Guidance issued last Friday by a senior judge has effectively barred magistrates from standing for the post, which in Northamptonshire comes with an estimated £70,000 salary... He said: "I am going to say I am not going to ...
The mid 1950s were, it turns out, little different to any other period in history: the popular press were in no doubt at all that teenagers were up to no good and it had all gone downhill since their parents' day. Picturegoer Magazine (a 1950s equivalent of Heat) decided to investigate – were these "Jazz rioters" (a phrase I never thought I'd hear) really as bad as the media were making out? Reporter Derek Walker and Photographer Allen Newton set off to a Rock 'n Roll festival at Butlins, Clacton where a thousand youngsters packed the chalet terraces. It showed ...
Politicians of all colours are running around to claim credit for Team GBs success at London 2012. Similarly sporting figures are also running around to trying to gain funding for 'their sports' from the Government. How can we build on success in 2012 to gain even more medals in 2016? I want to use the example of Jamaica, a country which has produced some of the best sprinters in the world. Since 1964 (way before Usain Bolt), Jamaica has won a medal in every summer Olympics – all of them but one in athletics. As some of you know, I ...
Predictably, because of the Olympics, there has been much discuss recently over funding of sports in the UK – including school PE. David Cameron caused a fuss because he wants to cut the 2 hours a week of compulsory school PE, stating that Indian Dance is something "you and I probably wouldn't think of as sport". [IMG: Zoe on a Via Ferrata] Probably not what David Cameron would call "Sport" It's called PE. Physical Education – not "Sport". This is the problem faced by the (And yes, I'm banging my usual drum here) male and pale crowd who probably did ...
I shall be away from this blog for a few days, but have scheduled some good things to appear in my absence. Most of them are by me, so let's begin by paying tribute to someone else. Stumbling and Mumbling is a blog written by Rutland's own Chris Dillow, whose book The End of Politics: New Labour and the Folly of Managerialism is well worth seeking out too. I remember two of his posts in particular. In Conservatives for Revolution from October 2008 he argued, surely correctly, that a reverence for English traditions is more common on the Left than ...
Former Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott has an article in The Scotsman this week looking at what he terms hyperbolically Nick Clegg's "ripping up the UK government's coalition agreement" after the Tories' decision to block Lords reform: For the party, this was a bitter pill to swallow. Many people were attracted to the Lib Dems because of constitutional reform. A Scottish Parliament, a Bill of Rights and elections using fairer voting systems are the DNA of most Lib Dems. Getting rid of the unelected House of Lords is part of the package of moving Britain into the 21st century. ...
As reported in today's Courier, I have criticised the proposed £859 136 expenditure on refurbishing Dudhope Castle for use by City Council staff and said that the City Council has to learn lessons from what is a bad example of the council failing to openly tender for the work to get best value for the council tax payer and also failing to ensure proper decision-making by rushing the spending through at the last minute through a small recess sub-committee. Following my raising concerns about the way this large expenditure was rushed through the Recess Sub-Committee of the council at the ...
Shale Gas will not have a direct effect on Peak Oil because Peak Oil relates to Oil. It will, however, have an effect on peak hydrocarbons (and there is also some condensate). The difficulty is assessing what effect it has. Key issues are for example that depletion rates for shale gas (possibly 48% in Haynesville) are higher than historic conventional natural gas. (20%) This presentation
Last week, I mentioned the consultation event taking place later today (between 2pm and 8pm at Discovery Point) regarding the proposed new Dundee Rail Station concourse building. I am talking about this on both local radio stations' news this morning - Wave 102 and Radio Tay - click 'play' below to listen:
So it's over... til the Paralympics in a fortnight's time anyway. I loved London 2012. Partly the sport, but mainly that it allowed us a glimpse of a happier, de-cynicised, un-post-ironic, joyous nation taking pride not only in athletic achievement from across the world, but also in treating each other with common humanity. Break's over, I know, but wouldn't it be good to hold on to that shared feeling? Anyway, here's my real-time tweet-vérité from last night's closing ceremony... [View the story "My Olympics closing ceremony in way too many tweets" on Storify] My Olympics closing ceremony in way too ...
Mon 13th
07:55
By 48% to 19%, Lib Dem members prefer post-2015 alliance with Labour to continuing pact with Tories
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. Post-2015, 48% choose Lib-Lab pact; 19% a Lib-Con pact; 13% prefer opposition LDV asked: Assuming the Lib Dems do not form a majority/minority government after the next election, which would be your most preferred outcome: 2% – A Labour majority government with the Lib Dems in opposition 6% – A minority Labour government with the Lib Dems in opposition 19% ...
Local Lib Dem councillor, Darren Fower, says its time that local councillors for the Paston, Walton and South Werrington ward to get together and look at ways of improving the well used and know, local recreational area of John Clare. Commenting, Darren said, "Yes! There is a play area up near to the the pub, but that covers about 10% of the overall park area. The bridge is old, we need more dog waste bins in better locations, more general waste bins and more and better benches for all people to make use of and enjoy the area. The options ...
With the schools back later this week, my weekly ward surgeries will start again on Thursday evening at Blackness Primary School. Full details of these and other contact details are available at http://www.dundeewestend.com/p/contact-fraser.html.
How amazing was that? I always thought it would go well (despite the cynicism) and I never thought we shouldn't have bid for it (despite the expense). But what I didn't know was quite how amazing the London 2012 Olympics would be. I have always been rubbish at sport and I don't usually watch sport ...
