..........................The loud and prolonged cheering which followed the decisive rejection of a resolution urging the abandonment of the policy (employee ownership) was the climax of the Assembly and made it clear that the great majority of those present regarded the proposals as the cornerstone of Liberal Policy and the Party's main issue at the forthcoming General Election. Profit-sharing and co-partnership have, of course, been advocated by the Liberal Party for more titan fifty years; but to-day it wants to go a good deal further than merely welcoming the development of such schemes. It wants to extend them over a large ...
Reblogged from Northern Ireland Roads: The media interest in the new bus lanes that have been introduced in Belfast over the past fortnight has been staggering, more than any other roads-related topic in recent years (other than parading on them of course). Today's Belfast Telegraph headlined with the word "Chaos", a reference to the Tuesday ...
The American Singer Andy Williams has died. Older readers may remember that the Andy Williams Show was a popular fixture on British television in the late 1960s. It introduced us to the Osmonds (may it be forgiven) and featured the lovable Cookie Bear and his long-running and unsuccessful campaign to get Williams to give him a cookie. Here are Williams and the bear with Kate Smith. How we laughed!
Wed 26th
21:03
No to 8 metre extensions without planning permission! News from the Lib Dem Conference
Health Warning: this blog entry contains some shameless self-promotion. Earlier this month the coalition government announced plans to consult on some temporary changes to the planning laws. The idea – I believe – was to try and stimulate the construction industry, but the changes they proposed are absolutely terrible. Today at the Lib Dem conference we had a debate on an emergency motion which called for the proposals to be withdrawn. The motion was overwhelmingly supported. I spoke in the debate, and the part of the proposals I attacked was the idea that people would be able to build extensions ...
Yahoo! News Canada reports that Justin Trudeau, son of the former Canadian Liberal prime minister, is to stand for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. However, it also reports a Canadian Liberal political analyst, Warren Kinsella, as expressing reservations about his candidacy: "He would be the front-runner," Kinsella told Yahoo! Canada News in an email exchange. "But a lot of us Liberals don't want or need a coronation. We need a competitive race with lots of great, viable candidates and ideas. Justin needs that, too." Kinsella ... adds that Trudeau has the sizzle but needs the steak.As my ...
Launceston Town Council has two vacancies following the sad death of Eric Chapman and the decision of Connie Geach to stand down. Would you or anyone you know be the right person to help guide the organisation into the future? The vacancies are about to be formally announced and, if ten electors request one, a by-election will be held to fill each vacancy. If there is no by-election then the remaining members of the town council will fill the vacancies by co-opting a willing volunteer. Eric Chapman was elected to represent the North ward and Connie Geach for South ward ...
Well done Nature for this effort on its news blog: Buddhist 'Iron Man' found by Nazis is from space Thanks to Ian Ridley.
Good news: Alarm Clock Britain remains dead. Promising news: Social Mobility only rarely used. (Why is that promising? Because it's a politically dreadful phrase.) INTRUDER ALERT: INCOMING NEW JARGON. Decarbonisation. No, no and thrice no. It's easy, short, convenient shorthand – and completely meaningless to most people. It's also increasingly popular on the lips of Liberal Democrat ministers who should know better.
Each fortnight, Cornwall Council's leader writes a column in the local papers. The one that will appear this week is more notable than most. Here are some extracts: "I want to make it absolutely plain that I am in total agreement with the Government's approach on tackling the national debt crisis" "It is, therefore, inevitable that further reductions will be required from local government." "I have every hope and belief that by continuing to implement creative efficiencies and opportunities, such as those represented by our Shared Services Strategic Partnership proposal, by fully exploiting other opportunities to integrate with our public ...
To make blue go green you have to add yellow
National renewal: that is our mission
This year's contender for 'Oddest thing to base your leadership bid on': Trudeau had initially said earlier this year that he was not interested in the leaders' job, but that position began to soften after he defeated a Conservative senator in a charity boxing match in March. And this is in Canada, which is not a place with a reputation for solving political disputes with fisticuffs. (original link via Randy McDonald)
Wed 26th
17:29
Read my lips: Party - good. Leader/coalition - not so good. Is that clear enough for everybody?
This week at Brighton I was asked two interesting questions by friends. The first was easier to unravel than the second. 1. "I thought you ripped up your membership card didn't you?" No. I said I was "done defending this" government. The rest of the post made this extremely clear. My beef is very firmly with Nick Clegg andthe Coalition as our part in it is being managed, not the Liberal Democrats. 2. "You've really got in for the party haven't you?" No. I disapprove of a number of Nick Clegg's judgments. I have actually never said anything negative about ...
Congratulations Apple and Orange, your new operating system is losing you a customer. Last Saturday I got a message on my phone (a four month old iphone 4S) to say that I should upgrade to the new ios6 operating system. I had read the comments about the problems with the mapping software but figured that I could live with that problem and so I pressed the upgrade button. Big mistake. Since that time my battery life has been cut by at least 50% to the extent that it needs re-charging during the course of a working day. And, in addition, ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg MP] Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has used his keynote speech to the Lib Dem Party conference in Brighton to announce extra money for 110,000 children struggling with maths and English. The Deputy Prime Minister said secondary schools in England will receive an extra £55 million to help pupils arriving in year seven who have slipped behind in English and maths at primary school. The money will come in from next January, with schools deciding how to spend it to help pupils with weaker results in maths and English. The extra funding, which could fund around 14 ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg MP] Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has used his keynote speech to the Lib Dem Party conference in Brighton to announce extra money for 110,000 children struggling with maths and English. The Deputy Prime Minister said secondary schools in England will receive an extra £55 million to help pupils arriving in year seven who have slipped behind in English and maths at primary school. The money will come in from next January, with schools deciding how to spend it to help pupils with weaker results in maths and English. The extra funding, which could fund around 14 ...
The Liberal Democrats conference is unique among the big three in that ordinary members are actually allowed to speak and vote on policy issues. Two that have special relevance for us in Cornwall relate to regional pay and the proposed planning changes. On regional pay, a motion put forward both by Lib Dems in Wales and in South East Cornwall opposed any proposal for regional pay. Among the speakers was my colleague Edwina Hannaford who reiterated the case we made in proposing a similar motion to Cornwall Council. She said that it would lead to less experienced public sector staff ...
Analysis later but for now, here's Nick's speech in full. This summer, as we cheered our athletes to gold after gold after gold, Britain remembered how it feels to win again. But more importantly, we remembered what it takes to win again. Whether from Jess Ennis or Mo Farah, Sarah Storey or David Weir, the message was the same: we may be the ones on the podium, but behind each of us stands a coach. And behind the coach, a team. And behind the team, the organisers, the volunteers, the supporters. And behind them, a whole city, an entire country, ...
Struggling to walk along the pavement safely between one meeting and the next over the last couple of days I was well and truly aware of the worst September storm for many years. However, I don't think we had anything compared to the amount of rain that fell in parts of the North East. Residents in Yarm and Eaglescliffe have sent me photos of the river, Yarm High Street, flooded fields where
Much of the pre-speech briefing was about how Nick Clegg's conference speech would major on how the party is becoming one of government. This is not a message aimed at the party itself really, as the debate in Brighton has been over what to do in government, not whether or not to be in government. Much more, the message was aimed at the media who love to attack the party for pushing policies they disagree with, dressing up disagreement with them as meaning the party can't be serious about government or taking tough decisions. Instead, Clegg argued that the party ...
Party leader speeches at conferences rarely contain completely untrailed and fresh news. Nick Clegg's does: that Paddy Ashdown will chair the party's 2015 general election campaign. Although his name wasn't one of those I speculated about previously, it is a logical choice because the party's plan is to fight a 1997-style general election campaign, with a tough national vote share environment hopefully bucked by very effective Parliamentary by-election style campaigns in around 75 seats. Ashdown was leader during that 1997 campaign, and also for the 1992 election when the question of 'what would you do in a hung Parliament?' dominated ...
I've always said that a promise worth making is a promise worth recording! So the promise Vince Cable made to improve Black, Asian and other minority ethnic political representation in the Lib Dems is one ...
Yesterday, the press was reporting about a big fall in cancer deaths and this Monday at conference - the day of a thousand meetings - I had the pleasure of sitting down with Prostate Cancer UK to hear about their ... Continue reading →
Wed 26th
14:03
Men with a lack of self-confidence and a one-way ticket to the friend zone I have some dating advice...
Men of the world who find themselves regularly making a permanent trip to the 'friend zone' need to listen up. I'm going to give you some advice and background for how not to find yourself in this particular position time after time. Now I know I'm no expert at not being in the friend zone. Heck I always make it there but I have actually had a bit of a crash course over the past year or so and you know what – the reason for repeated trips to the friend zone isn't because someone doesn't find you attractive but ...
Day three was another busy one in Brighton. Got a phone call from the whips office to confirm that I would be taking over from Don Foster MP as Lib Dem spokesperson for Sport, Culture and Media, following his ... Continue reading →
Wired alerts us to a paper by a team of Austrian statisticians suggesting that recent elections in Russia and Uganda were riddled with fraudulent voting practices. The study focused on hunting down anomalies in regional voting patterns, rather than on larger pools of data as is the usual trend. By focusing on regional activity, patterns clearly emerged indicating that when a high voter turnout in a specific area was combined with a high consensus for a particular candidate, more than a little ballot-fiddling had gone on - namely, the introduction of large numbers of false votes and the destruction of ...
If this tweet from Fraser Nelson is accurate - and obviously he's no friend of Labour so I would suggest caution - then it sounds like civil war could be about to break out in the Labour party. All the smart money seems to say that Balls is going to do exactly that - sign up to Government spending plans up to 2016. Our vote at conference on Monday, freeing Danny Alexander's hand to do just that, may have queered that pitch. But received wisdom is that Labour will want to sign up to Govt spending plans in 2014, just ...
Today's Cornish and Devon Post carries a long and, in part, misleading letter on the subject of the TRAC project. The subject is a serious one and I thought it important to give a reply. The original TRAC project was one which was supported by all local councillors. It envisaged an off-road trail from the Tamar to Egloskerry with the steam railway extended out to Egloskerry. Unfortunately, the railway extension had to be dropped because the council is not legally allowed to use its powers in order to benefit a private company. However, I still want to see the extension ...
Today, for the first time at the numerous leader's speeches I have attended, I intend to remain seated when Nick Clegg gets the standing ovation for his speech. I won't do it with any rancour or anger. I am a great fan of Nick Clegg (I just cannot support him as leader of our party anymore, as I have outlined ad nauseam elsewhere). I will be there, seated, smiling and clapping enthusiastically. But I am damned if I am going to stand. My reasons for doing so are based on a huge lump of gut-feel. Yes. Big lumpy, stodgy, bovine, ...
Welsh Labour politicians must be feeling slightly bruised this morning after reading this blog by the BBC's political editor in Scotland, which effectively challenges the give-away agenda they have been pursuing for some time. He reports that Scottish Labour Leader, Johann Lamont has questioned whether Scotland can continue to afford policies such as free personal care, free prescriptions, free university tuition and a continuing freeze on council tax. This is an agenda that New Labour did not feel able to adopt in England and which led to a number of notable clashes between UK Labour Ministers and their counterparts in ...
Just got word from the wife of my formerly missing friend, that he is home. So please don't worry if you see him out and about. There's no need to ring the police at present. Thanks very much for any prayers that have been said. Filed under: Blogging
Providing a sky-high start to next year's summer-to-autumn festivals season, Folkestone Airshow 2013 (June 7-9) is planned to be 'even more successful' than the 2012 event, says organiser Folkestone Town Centre Management Ltd. With town centre manager John Barber in overall charge of arrangements, FTCM has appointed a dedicated project team to plan and market the event and has also contracted a leading air display management company to produce and direct the flying programme. Project manager Yvonne Holder says: "We aim to make the air show weekend even more successful than the one in June which attracted an estimated 60,000 ...
Also last night, I took part in the latest committee meeting of the West End Sports and Heritage Association at The Vine in Magdalen Yard Road. Amongst the many items discussed was recent good news about WESHA's success (along with three other Dundee sports hubs) in gaining funding through a Community Payback bid for significant improvements to the Riverside Pavilion/Changing Rooms on Riverside Drive. It looks like the works to improve the changing facilities will take place early in the new year and will greatly improve the quality of changing facilities. We also discussed progress on WESHA's lease negotiations at ...
Although still recovering from 26 hours of return flights, I had the pleasure of attending the second meeting of Perth Road businesses last night at the Tartan Coffee House, aimed at establishing a traders' association for the Perth Road district shopping area. Like the first meeting back in July, it was a very positive event and good to see an even-higher turnout of local businesses this time. Apart from discussing progress towards getting a traders' association formally established, there was useful discussion about environmental improvements in the area, West End Christmas Fortnight and a walkabout that is to be arranged ...
Janet & I have been in Melbourne for the past couple of weeks visiting our first grandson, Henry, who was born in July. Henry is doing very well and it was lovely to meet him for the first time and see Greg and Karen, our younger son and daughter-in-law again! It was, of course, "great" to come back to the lovely Scottish weather on Monday night! Anyway, here's a few photos from our visit to Melbourne! Henry and me! Janet at Festival Indonesia at Melbourne's Queensbridge Square, on a beautiful Saturday morning! Unlike our last visit to Australia last Christmas ...
The Liberal Democrat European Group (LDEG) and Liberal International British Group (LIBG) joined forces last night at a fringe meeting at the LibDems' autumn conference on the place of Britain in the European Union and Europe's place in the world. I was the first speaker, stressing how important it is that the Party continues to ...
It's 50 days and counting to the election no one's heard of... November's Police and Crime Commissioner Elections are set to have the lowest turnout in British history. Today we have been joined by candidates from across the political divide to call on Theresa May to tackle the rockbottom turnout. [1] Will you join them? The Police Federation have already warned that low turnout is an open door to extreme candidates. [2] The Government insisted on elected police commissioners - and with the clock ticking they need to listen to the police, the candidates and the public and start fulfilling ...
[IMG: Blackboard] Tax, tax and a bit more about tax: that's been the main theme of the Liberal Democrat conference, from the slogan on badges and the banner outside the building through to the content of speeches and the main policy focus of the media coverage. When it comes to new policy announcements, however, it is education that has had a strong showing. First there was the news on summer schools: Lib Dems announce further £100m for summer schools to help children catch-up Mr Laws said: "All too often pupils who have made big progress through the school year fall ...
Bury Council is currently undertaking a review of the Council's Seedfield Physical Disability Day Centre. Seedfield Day Centre provides daytime support for people aged 18 and over who live in Bury and have a physical and/or sensory disability. This review will look at the current provision at Seedfield and determine what action the Day Service needs to take to make sure it provides services that are sustainable it for purpose and appropriately meet the needs of people with physical and sensory disabilities across Bury. As well as thinking about improved facilities where a future service could be delivered, the Council ...
This is a reminder that on September 23, Chris Jennings sent you an invitation to become part of their professional network at LinkedIn. Accept Chris Jennings's Invitation On September 23, Chris
Just: genius. The recent Party broadcast by Nick Clegg apologising for breaking the tution fees pledge has been remixed, put to music and released as a single. With the agreement of Nick Clegg, the single has hit the charts, with all profits from the sale going to a Sheffield Children's charity. The single, produced by Alex Ross and The Poke, was released over the weekend. Published and promoted by Tim Prater, 98a Sandgate High Street, Folkestone, CT20 3BYPrinted (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
Female politicians receive biased wardrobe scrutiny (tags: ) What the SW NHS cartel REALLY thinks about staff, unions - and Treasury 'theft' | skwalker1964 (tags: ) Traynor's Eye: Meeting A Troll... This needs reading. (tags: ) Personal statement: 10 most overused opening sentences - Telegraph (tags: ) Victory for open justice - Lib Dem Conference rejects secret courts | Liberty - protecting civil liberties, promoting human rights (tags: ) Andrew Mitchell and the truth about 'nasty' Tories - Telegraph Blogs (tags: ) Hypnotic dancing skeletons (tags: ) Why American Phone, Cable & Internet Bills Cost So Much Just goes to ...
Calm Down. Relax.
Wed 26th
09:24
Two priceless conference comedy moments (for about five people on the surface of Planet Earth)
Colin Rosenstiel is a Lib Dem legend, star of constitutional minutiae and progenitor of bicycling anecdotes. At 9am yesterday, there was a constitutional amendments debate. (Yes – riveting. A few minutes before it was due to start, the audience would have been out-numbered by those six Liberal MPs who could get into a taxi in 1970. The debate started with the words, "Good morning, fellow insomniacs!") At the end, Colin stood up and raised a point of order – the Lib Dem equivalent of firing a tactical nuclear weapon. Something about a separate vote. The comedy moment was the withering, ...
Don't tell anyone, but I'm leaving conference on Wednesday morning before our leader speaks. It's nothing personal — I think my record's pretty clear on supporting Nick Clegg's leadership — but I find leaders' speeches tiresome. The bullet points will have been carefully briefed to the press in advance, embargoed copies of the speech will be widely circulating — by the time Nick actually gets to his feet for the traditional 40-minute peroration it'll already feel like a repeat, even if he does ad lib a couple of scripted (and, sorry, almost certainly lame) jokes. Add to that the compulsion ...
Liberal Youth's awesome Exec and Conference officer and committee have produced a guide to having a great time at Conference in Brighton. You can get your copy for free here! Not only does it include the amazing MP Bingo, it has some highlights of the events which may be of interest to youth and student ...
How to get your thoughts to a national audience via a successful website courtesy of one simple tweet:
It looks as though the hopes of the Tories getting an easy ride into Parliament next time are not going to happen. That would have happened, of course, if the proposed boundary changes go through, and the number of MPs in Parliament is reduced from 650 to 600. Much of Dunstable would be lumped in with north Luton, separating Houghton Regis from the market town it gave birth to. But Nick Clegg has vetoed the change, so Dunny will stay with its older parent, Houghton Regis, and Tory Dunstablians will be spared the potential embarrassment of possibly joining in a ...
1. I welcome the vote of conference on this measure. Secret courts have no place in British justice, and secret evidence unchallenged and unseen by one side is no justice at all. 2. Jo Shaw gave the speech of the week in proposing the motion. I thought she was fantastic. I hope she stands again for the party in 2015 and gets elected. We need more Jo Shaws. 3. I so wish Julian Huppert hadn't been put up to defend the wrecking amendment. Julian is a top MP who is doing fantastic work on defeating the #snooping bill. I don't ...
This week's featured NOW! album features one of my favourite songs of all time - the Stereophonics with their version of Handbags and Gladrags. I really couldn't look past this, once spotted: Andrew
What's the mood in Brighton? Find out with the help of Alex Stevenson and the Politics.co.uk podcast, featuring amongst others Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos Mori, Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute for Economic Affairs and myself.
Over at the Huffington Post, LibDemVoice co-editor Stephen Tall assesses the party conference. His verdict? What's significant is what hasn't happened. Here's how his piece starts: On the face of it this has been a pretty tepid, even dull, Lib Dem conference. No rows, cock-ups or defeats. But it's probably been the most important party gathering since the special conference in May 2010 when the party dipped its hand in blood to sign the Coalition Agreement. Why do I say that? Because of what didn't happen. Political commentators, especially of the left (yes, I'm looking at you, Polly) – the ...
This year's conference seems smaller, quieter than previously. That's not surprising; the party's shed 20% of its membership in the past couple of years and hundreds of councillors have lost their seats. With so many of the poor bloody infantry lost in battle, there are fewer of us able to walk towards the sound of gunfire. Add to that the cost of attending a party conference - even staying at a spit-and-sawdust B&B I'm shelling out £500 for the privilege of being here - and it's small wonder numbers are down and many debates in the conference hall are patchily ...
Now Lembit Opik is not a man who takes himself particularly seriously - even if that is still more seriously than the rest of us. But what to make of his claim that he now wants to be the Lib Dem candidate for the marginal seat of Richmond Park? He was certainly happy to promote the idea to anyone that would listen in Brighton. But the prospect (however unlikely) of him matching up against Zac Goldsmith and his well oiled negative campaign machine really wouldn't fill me with a lot of hope for Lib Dem prospects.
