Here's a mystery: a fine Norman doorway set in what is obviously a later window arch. The solution is that St Denys in York was once a much larger church. Its website explains: The church was founded before 1154, on the site of a late Saxon church and an earlier Roman building. A Roman altar and an Anglo-Danish 'hogsback' tombstone were found on the site in 1846. Traces of these earlier buildings came to light during trial excavations in 2001 to investigate the church's foundations (which proved extremely stable). The present building dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, ...
At the start of this week I suggested that the BBC may have a recruitment strategy that manages to select the only people in the country too dense to have heard the rumours about Jimmy Savile and underage girls. Sure enough, Mark Thompson announced shortly afterwards from his lucrative American exile that: "I never heard of any rumours nor received any complaints or allegations [about Jimmy Savile] while I was director general at the BBC." But "dense" people don't get to the top of big organisations like the BBC and it is often more useful to look at what is ...
I have spent a lot of time today arguing on-line with fellow Liberal Democrats about the contribution of the European Union to peace. Some have repeated the false but successful UKIP propaganda that the EU is undemocratic; some have challenged its contribution to peace; some have moaned about the Common Fisheries Policy. As Romano Prodi pointed out on Radio 4 Europe has enjoyed the longest
In 1888, at the age of 55 a Swedish man got to glimpse the way the world would remember him. And he did not like it. Imagine the face of the pacifist as he read his own obituary describe him as the "merchant of death". The newspaper had made a mistake, the man would not ...
A victory for the South East in the shape of kentnews.co.uk: Medway Council benefits officer guilty of benefit fraud
There seems to have been another outbreak of yarn bombing in Launceston over the last few nights. With colder weather moving in, it appears some people want to make sure that the street furniture is kept nice and warm. You can see more examples here. As to who is responsible, still no one is saying.... Don't forget, carnival is tomorrow evening, from 7pm. Tweet
Target: UK Government Sponsored by: UNA-UK UNA-UK believes that the UN is an essential tool for building a safer, fairer and more sustainable world. But in order for it to be effective, it needs the support of governments and ... Continue reading →
On the way home from work I called in at Quinns bookshop in Market Harborough for a reception to launch Preposterous Erections, the new book by Peter Ashley of Unmitigated England. I met a Conservative councillor who enjoys this blog and someone who had known the late Barry Summers, who taught me and was later a Liberal and then Lib Dem councillor alongside me, when they were both in the Labour Party in the 1970s. Preposterous Erections, says the blurb: brings together sixty uniquely fascinating towers from all corners of England. From the parkland Brizlee Tower in Northumberland to the ...
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of suspected drug money and drugs has been seized from several addresses in Stockport. Wednesday 10 October 2012, officers from GMP's Stockport division and the Force Drug Unit executed 13 drugs warrants at addresses across Stockport, including Cheadle, Davenport, Cale Green, Heaton Norris, Heaton Moor and Bredbury and one in North Wales. Between £250,000 and £500,000 was seized from one address, a further £150,000 was seized from a second and £7,000 from a third. Large amounts of what are believed to be Class A drugs and Benzocaine – which is often used to `mix drugs ...
I've always enjoyed watching the UK's X Factor, but some reason this year I'm finding the US version has far more real talent. As to the UK, I have previously had reasonable success at selecting the end finalists, so I'm having another stab at it this year, despite my reservations. I couldn't sit through all the chit-chat, so I watched the "singing", and made the following comments before hearing the actual judges comments. So who's going to win X-Factor 2012? Well, I've put them in the order I think they might end up in; the predicted finishing number is in ...
It's the X-factor finals with the usual smattering of real talent hidden among the wannabee dross. So it's time for some real music...
To judge by the delegates I met at Confrence David Howarth's demolition of Richard Reeve's arguments at a fringe meeting was most welcome. Reeves-who it must be said wrote an excellent biography of J S Mill - has been peddling some odd ideas since he left Clegg employ. He has produced a pamphlet and that was the basis of the discussion at the fringe meeting. Howarth had the advantage that he had read the pamphlet in advance and so was able to un-pick the argument. to make sense of the rest of this posting you will need to watch the ...
That Gladstone moved from Rodney St in Liverpool to Seaforth is well known. The indefatigable local historian Brenda Murray has wanted a statue erected in Seaforth for sometime and being Miss Murray has not just dreamed about she has got on and done something. Tom Murphy, the Liverpool sculptor has designed the statue and Miss Murray has got on with the fundraising. Am initial target of £19k is now achievable and at the last count only three thousand pounds is needed. The statue will stand in the grounds of the Star of the Sea Church in Seaforth looking out towards ...
I've had a day off from my job of raising money to reduce the Government's budget deficit and, rather than spend it playing Civilisation, or walking the Parish footpaths, or lazing in front of the television watching repeats of Top Gear, I've spent it with Ros, on a House of Lords school outreach visit. It is, it seems, a little known fact that the House of Lords has an outreach programme, and the schools that tend to apply for a visit from a Peer tend to be relatively well-heeled, often in the independent sector. And yes, that probably means that ...
In a great example of what can be done now that the party's election rules have been relaxed, over on her blog Jennie Rigg is posting answers to the questions she has sent to all Liberal Democrats standing for either the Federal Policy Committee (FPC) or Federal Conference Committee (FCC). As I'm running for FPC, that includes my own answers, which I've also reproduced below: I've tried to keep my answers reasonably concise as there are of lots of good questions (and even more good candidates answering them!). If I've skimped on any details that any reader is interested in, ...
It's Friday. It's five o'clock. Here's a fistful of lists that sum up the LDV week: 5 most-read stories on LDV this week Opinion: "The Lib Dems will be crushed at the next election" - Busting the biggest lie in British politics (79 comments) by Lev Eakins Osborne: Employees, exchange your rights for shares (89 comments) by NewsHound Revealed: What Lib Dem members think of Ed Miliband and David Cameron (9 comments) by Stephen Tall Jeremy Hunt: I disagree with him, but why shouldn't he give his view? (75 comments) by Stephen Tall How not to do an interview: Grant ...
There were two principal council by-elections on Thursday 11th October. Unfortunately, there was only a single contest with a Liberal Democrat candidate. Sorry, East Lindsey Lib Dems, this could have been your time to shine - instead you'll have to make do with this derisory mention in the introduction! East Lindsey's Sutton-on-Sea North was held by Sutton-on-Sea First and not much else appears to have happened. The second contest took place in the Whitefoot ward of Lewisham LBC. A Lib Dem defence, our incumbent resigned to take up a job opportunity in India. Whitefoot is a ward with a mix ...
This is the latest in my series of Random Thoughts posts with links, things found on the web and other stuff that has occured to me between 3rd October 2012 and 12th October 2012: 10 things the Lib Dem conference has taught us Ten things we learned from the Labour party conference Ten things we've learned from the Conservative party conference We've reached the end of the party conference season for 2012 and these are three links that form a useful round up in the form of these '10 things' articles from Andrew Sparrow on The Guardian website. Results of ...
To mark World Arthritis Day, Jamie Hewitt, Government Affairs Manager at the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) peers into Norman Lamb MP's ministerial inbox and takes a look at the forthcoming Long-Term Conditions Outcomes Strategy. Things move on quickly in politics. Just shy of one year ago today I posted a blog for Liberal Democrat Voice on the subject of a live webchat we had conducted with the Minister for Long-Term Conditions at the time, Paul Burstow MP. During our public tête-a-tête the Minister was challenged squarely about the merits of introducing a musculoskeletal strategy and indicated that the Coalition ...
I welcome the announcement made this morning by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), that they will be launching an investigation into possible wrongdoing over the Hillsborough disaster. Immediately after the findings of the Independent ... Continue reading →
NPower has now joined the UK's largest energy supplier - British Gas - in hiking its energy tariffs just as winter hoves into view. The fact that there are just six main players in the market means these suppiers act as a cartel with no real competitors to act as a brake on their corporate avarice. It's clear now that these energy giants - whose annual profits run into billions - need to be broken up and the pitch cleared for proper competition in the market. Over to you Ed...
This'll be a short post. WARNING: THIS POST HAS PARTY POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS. I have posted about what I understand it to mean to be a Liberal and explained that I'm an active member of the British Liberal Democrats, but most of the time I prefer to post about political and moral issues in the broad sense (or satirically) rather than talking party politics or indeed Christianity or Quakerism. But. If you look at the history of dissidence and nonconformism, you'll find it often suggested that these strange and awkward people, by deliberately taking a route different to that taken by ...
I've just watched a bus sail past three waiting passengers. I'm not saying it's Go North East's fault. I'm not saying it's the Water Board's fault. I'm not saying it's the council's fault. I'm not saying it was anybody's fault. It was just very bad news for the three passengers, one of whom commented that he was now going to be late for college. Obviously the road has had to be dug up in a hurry because of a leak, and has forced traffic onto single carriageway at the very point where the bus stop stands. For planned works the ...
Mike's answers are ( under the cut ) You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
There's a very good open letter to Nick Clegg on Lib Dem Voice today, and it covers many of the points I wanted to make on the 'shares for rights' proposals George Osborne put forward this week. The plan itself is bit of political game-playing by Osborne, in my opinion. The Tories have failed to get any traction for any of the Beecroft proposals on employment rights, so they've now switched to a different tactic. Employee ownership of companies is a good thing, and something – as Nigel Quinton points out in that LDV article – that the Liberal Democrats ...
I'm glad I was already mid-editing my LinkedIn profile. I have a new honour to add – I just won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not every day you get to put "Am a joint winner of Nobel Peace Prize" on your CV.— IanVisits (@ianvisits) October 12, 2012 It is a great honour for the ...
Finally. My monthly season ticket As many of my regular readers or followers on Twitter will know I'm a commuter. I travel to London most days from Gillingham. Unlike some commuters I don't earn a large amount of money, in fact I've had to move around in my job and get a position with more pay just to stay ahead of the increases. Unfortunately I have reached the end of the promotion chain for the moment and with the Museum industry facing cuts I can only look forward to a 1% pay rise this year. This would mean that I ...
In the spring and summer I blogged about how underwhelmed I was by the exceptionally tight campaigning restrictions for Unlock Democracy's internal elections which blocked contact between candidates and voters (the irony given the organisation's name!), leaving just a fairly uninformative booklet to guide my votes: Now having the ballot mailing for the council and for the related limited company in front of me, things are even worse. Why? Because I'm left with almost no decent information on which to decide how to cast my vote. Sure, I've got a vote - and it's by STV - but it's a ...
"We're still compassionate, I still say "Hug a hoodie" – but you can blow their brains out if you find one in your house after midnight..."
The winner of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize is the European Union. There has been some mocking of the award from a mixture of sources. But maybe it is time to look at history and I'll take you back to Robert Schuman. You may not know who Robert Schuman was but in 1950 he was the French Foreign Minister. On 9 May of that year he issued the Schuman declaration in light of the two world wars that had centred on Europe in the previous 35 years. The French had realised that justice across Europe and perceived injustice had led ...
It was disappointing to see the Lib Dems lose the Whitefoot council byelection in Lewisham last night. We had an excellent candidate in Janet Hurst, and Vijay Naidu did a great job as agent. The result ...
How nice to hear Tories called stupid, not evil (Hugo Rifkind): Hugo Rifkind has given voice to what I've thought for quite a long time. Attacks on the Tories, or conservatives, or the 'other' in politics on the basis that they are evil fundamentally miss the point that there are very few people in the world who you could count as being truly 'evil' and they are not specific to one part of the political spectrum. It also betrays a staggering lack of political understanding, when you fly right past the debate and instead fixate on the uniquely evil status ...
Last week saw the celebration of Nation Poetry Day so let us start with a poem. It is often said that the poems you learn by heart as a child stay with you. So here is the beginning one my English teacher, Mr Russell, made me memorise: WHY is it that the poet tells So little of the sense of smell? These are the odours I love well: The smell of coffee freshly ground; Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned; Or onions fried and deeply browned. The full text can be found here Those words came to mind when I ...
Nicholas William Peter Clegg is the most successful Liberal leader in generations. Not only has he taken our party into government for the first time in seventy years, but he has actually made coalition work, bringing Liberal values to the core of national politics. He is also immensely charismatic, as his cracker of a party ...
Dear Nick Like most people I have spoken to this week I had imagined that Osborne's announcement of "shares-for-rights" was for the Tory conference audience, and would not see its way into government policy, not at least while the Liberal Democrats are part of the government. Yet today I read in Tim Gordon's weekly update that we actually are supporting this as a promotion of employee ownership! Nick, it is anything but!! This is Beecroft by the back door. We are told by Tim Gordon that we should not worry, it is entirely voluntary. No, it is not, just read ...
Twitter has once again been a hotbed of rational, calm, well thought out political discourse this morning. On the announcement that the EU had been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the mass ranked went into overdrive. Here is some ... Continue reading →
At the end of July, British Gas announced profits of £345,000,000. This takes their total profit to over £3 billion for the past 5 years. Now, less than 3 months later, they have announced further rises in the price of ... Continue reading →
I am delighted to announce that I have been successfully placed on the shortlist for the London Liberal Democrats' candidates, European Parliament elections in 2014. It was a tough selection procedure and interview but the campaign has now started. There is some serious talent on the shortlist, which just shows the depth of quality we enjoy in the Liberal Democrats amongst our candidates. Alongside members of the academic and financial profession, my role as an administration manager in local government seems very humble. It will be a difficult campaign but I will give it my best shot, and hope I ...
Fantastic speech by Julia Gillard!
Bizarre stories have emerged in the last few weeks about a third of everyone arrested in London are not British citizens – foreigners! In the London area that 72,505 criminals alone. Truly astounding. And this is apparently a lower number than the previous year. So it's hardly surprising if the Met Police in London have drafted in immigration officials to try and support them. In fact its such a large problem they've created Operation Terminus with the UK Border Agency for six months. The idea being such criminals sometimes also wanted by their original country. So far they've found 79 ...
Liberal Democrat conference reps have a treat in store from next Monday. Ballot papers land on their doorsteps for elections to the party's Federal Committees. I should declare my interest now - I am standing for the Federal Executive. Voters in the election will have approximately 175 A5 sheets of paper to read. These are all very good, but they tell you what the candidate wants you to know. In my case, there's half a dozen ways to contact me to ask questions, and I might casually mention in passing that I'm that Scottish blog woman. The awesome Jennie Rigg ...
It looks as though this column may be going down in flames, now that the Lords have appointed a new Media & PR OFficer, but until we do... Days 7 and 8 of the Committee Stage of the Financial Services Bill dominate the week. And, as I still don't understand it, I'm going to see if I can get an explanation. Watch, hopefully, this space... However, Amendment 197, to be moved by Lord Flight, requires banks to transfer accounts to a new institution, if requested, within ten working days and without charge. I suspect that the banks won't like this, ...
First published on the 11-10-2012 on my History blog. Today, during his trip to the Imperial War Museum David Cameron referred to the Museum's Focke-Wulf Fw 190 as a Messerschmitt. Normally this would not be a problem but unfortunately he said it within earshot of an amateur Luftwaffe historian - me. Now it may not seem like too much of an error but to put it into context it would be like comparing a Spitfire to a P. 51 Mustang. So if you'll bear with me I will provide a brief biography of both aircraft and within you will see ...
Politics – brutal with no prizes for second. A few of us from Greenwich had been hopping over the border to help Lewisham Lib Dems retain one of their seats in Whitefoot ward, a really pleasant area between Downham and Catford, after the existing LD councillor had to leave the UK for a job teaching underprivileged children in India. Last ...
One of the most impressive chapters in the Orange Book was by a chap called Clegg. It put forward the quite astonishing suggestion that, given our focus on ensuring that the right amount of power is wielded at the right sort of level, we should have a think about which powers it would be best ...
Fabian Society » The case for contribution (tags: ) The Met make a rudimentary effort to tackle rape culture. Poorly. « Another angry woman (tags: ) Why are they trending? International Coming Out Day, #ReasonswhyIleftFacebook, #Dayofthegirl - Comment - Voices - The Independent (tags: ) Reddit blocks Gawker in defence of its right to be really, really creepy (tags: ) UK Hands Out Tax Breaks For 'Using' Patents | Techdirt (tags: ) Cheap, and far from free: The migrant army building Britain (tags: ) Abortion Clinic Harassment Experience. (tags: ) Not the Treasury view...: Fair taxes: not just about income ...
The jailing of a man for wearing a T-shirt daubed with offensive comments referring to the murders of PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes has been condemned by a Liberal Democrat MEP. Barry Thew, of Radcliffe, Greater Manchester admitted ... Continue reading →
Fri 12th
09:41
Jimmy Savile: Going on news to say you had a notion of what was going on is not clever
With every revelation about Jimmy Savile, there are more questions about how on earth he managed to get away with what appears to be a sustained campaign of abuse for so long. I am finding it particularly annoying that people are popping up all over the news, nodding sagely and saying, yes, they'd heard rumours about what was happening 40 years ago and some even have information about specific instances of abuse. Well, all I have to say is why on earth did you not say anything about it then? Why did people simply sit around in the pub or ...
Jon's answers are ( below the cut ) You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Squalor. Ignorance. Want. Idleness. Disease. William Beveridge's five gaint evils encapsulated the enemies the welfare state was designed to combat. They signalled the battles that needed to continue once the military action of World War II had ended. Yet 70 years on from the publication of the Beveridge report there have been a number of suggestions that we need to move on. That we need to refresh Beveridge for the twenty first century. At the turn of the year Liam Byrne had a crack at it. He delivered the Beveridge lecture at LSE in which he offered an interpretation of ...
Why did no one listen to Jerry's howl of rage? | Mail Online See Track, Think Train: the public information film lives to terrify again | Film | The Guardian Lord Forsyth gives me a headache David Cameron's Conservatives are living a lie and he can't speak up | Martin Kettle This has made me laugh more than anything in a long time: "Bring it, say badgers" David Cameron's referendum dilemma Is office harassment really a thing of the past? I bet Ben Abbotts is watching these proceedings with interest: Matthew Woods 'joking' about April Jones on Facebook is sick, ...
Congratulations to June Somekh, councillor for Cheadle Hulme North (incuding East Cheadle) and radio broadcaster par excellence. June and the New Horizons team at Pure Radio are one of five nominees for the Roses Media Award for Best factual radio programme about older people's issues, and the only one of the five not from the BBC stable! Shortlist: Pure 107.8FM, Stockport: New Horizons BBC Radio 4: Woman's Hour, grandparents special BBC Radio 4: You and Yours, dementia village BBC Radio 4: You and Yours, positive ageing BBC Radio Kent: Julia George, on caring/on planning for old age care/would you rather ...
The Stockport Fairtrade Fair is at Stockport College on Saturday 17th November 2012 from 10.30am to 4pm – it's always worth a visit so why not drop by on the day. Stockport Fairtrade Fair 2012 (Front) Stockport Fairtrade Fair 2012 (Back)
There were red faces all around on Wednesday night as Conservative AMs contemplated their basic error of voting the wrong way in an Assembly debate. As the BBC report the Tories mistakenly voted in favour of calling the UK government incompetent over its handling of the West Coast main line. I understand that the phone lines between Cardiff and Westminster were buzzing that evening. As all the Ministers involved were Conservative this is embarrassing to say the least. The Welsh Liberal Democrat group were left as the only ones voting to support the UK Government in an effort to show ...
School open days have certainly changed since I was young. Students and staff at The Kingsway School deserve a big thank you for the excellent afternoon they put on for the year six children who'll be moving up next year. Kingsway's a big school – 1500 pupils spread over two sites with a busy dual carriageway running down the middle: potentially pretty intimidating when you've come from a much smaller primary school. But the primary school children were made to feel more than welcome with, among other things, the chance to ice cakes, get a peronalised key-ring, watch dance and ...
Conservative Ministers were very keen to play tough for the grassroots at this week's Tory Party Conference but the reality is that they still need to get agreement from their Liberal Democrats coalition partners before they can deliver on their rhetioric. As Mark Pack reports, Nick Clegg has made it clear that no deal has been doe on further cuts to Welfare Benefits: "Nothing in detail has been agreed on further cuts or savings to, to welfare. The Conservatives, of course, entirely entitled to set out their stall about what we do as a country is we have to tighten ...
As you'll have noticed from my twitter feed yesterday, I managed to get a joke I'd written featured on BBC Radio 4 Extra's Newsjack last night. If you want to hear it, then it's available on iPlayer for another week, which you can listen to by clicking here. You should listen to the whole thing of course, but if you're in a rush, my joke is at 21:20. It's the first time I've ever submitted anything to Newsjack, so maybe it's beginner's luck, but having something I've written appear on air does feel rather good. Now I just need to ...
This is a healthcare related blog post. An American Healthcare post. This is the front cover of this week's New England Journal of Medicine. It is the US equivalent of The Lancet (sort of). It carries only serious, thought through, academic papers. Check out the two first authors. This was not trailed or promoted. They just did it. Extraordinary. Click to enlarge... Wouldn't it be great if the same happened here. No room for doubt about bottom up/top down reorganisation then...
At a chaotically chaired Licensing Committee last night, Liberal Democrat councillors attacked the council's plans to introduce a taxi rank in Market Place. Chris White, who leads for licensing for the Liberal Democrat group, said: 'The papers contained a previously undiscussed proposal to direct taxis up Spencer Street in order to park up outside The Boot. 'Market Place is essentially a pedestrian shopping area – and in fact should be fully pedestrianised, as it was until Labour councillors reintroduced traffic there a decade or so ago. Having taxis there completely undermines its current use – as well as ruining one ...
Also yesterday, I chaired the latest meeting of the West End Christmas Fortnight Committee - this is taking really good shape. There's a growing programme of events in place covering the fortnight - 17th November to 1st December! Later yesterday, I attended the latest committee meeting of the Bonnie Dundee group at the City Chambers. The group encourages improvements to the Dundee environment and local groups who help to keep Dundee's parks, open areas, streets and gardens in good shape. We discussed judges comments about the recent Silver Award to the city by Beautiful Scotland. In terms of Bonnie Dundee's ...
I was on Wave 102 news yesterday regarding the St John's High School travel issue - click 'play' below to listen:
Over the past few months I have been hitting the streets, speaking to people all over London from Barnet to Bromley, from Ealing to the East End and the biggest issue that people raise is to do with the state of the economy. Their livelihoods, homes and jobs are under threat from a problem that ...
My singular agenda in politics is to ensure the full establishment and maintenance of a truly Liberal society, and I recognise that this requires thinking very carefully about how decisions made today will affect the world of tomorrow. The problem is that politicians of all creeds too often make decisions which affect the next fifty years when only thinking about the next five. Necessary for even the most minimal assurance of a truly liberal society are the education and health services delivered free at the point of use to which we have all become accustomed. However, I look to the ...
Mark's answers are ( under the cut ) You can find links to all the other candidates' answers here [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
