I was willingly convinced into going to a 'bop', i.e. a school disco type event, from 8:30pm which finishes at 12am. As you may be able to tell from the post time of this, I left early. For the first hour and a half, perhaps, it was somewhat enjoyable. I am satisfied that I was
I remember the days when I used to commute. Well I say commute I used to volunteer in a charity shop so my commute wasn't exactly early morning (more noonish) but the train home was in rush hour. These days I use the choo choo's a fair bit but rarely on long journeys. Well three weeks ago I was down in South London having luncheon with a friend and then she decided to try and kill me by making me walk up hills but I don't hold grudges (she tried to kill me she did) but still no grudges (kill ...
I spent today helping at the Corby by-election. Jill Hope's campaign office is on an industrial estate in the south of the town - you can find a map of how to reach it in an earlier post here. But the town of Corby accounts for only about half the constituency's electorate and I was sent off to Thrapston where I delivered a labyrinthine new estate. Talking to the insiders, the consensus was that the Conservative vote is unusually soft - an impression confirmed by political journalists who have visited the constituency. It's not just that they have been demoralised ...
"This by election came about most unexpectedly and the local party needed someone to stand here. The party were aware that although I didn't live in Corby, I had spent six years in the area working with unemployed people, and helping pre-release prisoners to get into self-employment." The Backbencher talks to Jill Hope, Liberal Democrat candidate in the Corby by-election. Gareth Epps looks at Jo Grimond's approach to employee ownership. "We have got to get out of this ludicrous role we have been in for the past 20 years, where charities love to be called professional because they think somehow ...
Over the last few days, I have been fairly content with life. Perhaps this is around average. But I simply should be happier. I don't mean 'should' in the sense of 'it's my divine right to be happy', because, well, it isn't. The point is that I have a whole life of fantastic people and
Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum before conference to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 550 party members have responded, and we're publishing the full results. 44% say 'gender is irrelevant'; but 35% say Clegg should have appointed female cabinet minister by now LDV asked: The Cabinet, which includes five Lib Dems, comprises four women (all Conservative MPs) and 19 men following the reshuffle. Of the Lib Dems' 20 junior government posts, six are held by women of whom three are MPs. The Lib ...
Well its all over for another year. Yes its been conference season. The media reckon Boris got on better than Dave. Although I thought Dave did better. Although I'm not entirely convinced his aspiration speech hits the spot. How can we every single person aspire during a recession when those at the workface have their noses to the economic wire. Ed craved One Nation - yet didnt carry the essence of his vision. He may have gone to the right school for his party - but his education was from Balls and Brown. Nick Clegg was fighting back after the ...
With employee ownership back on the agenda, albeit in a form with which no Liberal Democrats I know of are happy, I thought it was time to re-read that great Liberal campaigner for co-ownership, Jo Grimond. Interestingly, neither The Liberal Challenge or The Liberal Future, Grimond's great texts of 1959 and 1963, even refer to the controversial element in today's proposal, the Beecroft-inspired suspension of employment rights. This, of course, may well have been because employment law as we now know it is unrecognisable from that of the McMillan Government – it was only in 1963 that the Contracts of ...
[IMG: Letterbox] During the week I blogged about how it looked like the Conservatives would be throwing their national kitchen sink at only around 10 Liberal Democrat held constituencies. That compares to 35 seats won by the Lib Dems in 2010 in which the Conservatives finished second, and would mean quite a few Liberal Democrats MPs not facing an all-out nationally-backed challenge in their seat – undoubtedly good news for the party. Now ConservativeHome and the Birmingham Post have more on quite what the Conservatives will be doing: At the heart of the 40/40 campaign is an ambition to hold ...
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 ...
The revised site proposal There has been much comment on the proposal to move the proposed V&A at Dundee building away from the river and north to the waterfront itself. As I indicated in today's Courier, I sought an assurance from the City Council's Director of City Development that the integrity of the design will remain intact. What would concern me would be if the change had been made purely to save money and if the visionary elements of the design had been lost. Kengo Kuma's design was an inspired choice and I want to make sure none of the ...
This morning, my hair (singular) was cut by a barber of Turkish extraction. At the end, he produced a long stick with cotton wool at the end of it, asking: Would you like the hair in your ears burnt? Well, I'm game to try anything once, so I said "Yes". He then poured some lighter fuel (or something similar) on the cotton wool, lit it with a cigarette lighter, and proceeded to burn the hair off my ears – the bits inside and on the outside. I have to say it was a bit alarming. He really did burn my ...
Welcome to another edition of Saturday Six, a hand-picked selection of some of my favourite blogposts and articles from the last week. Kicking things of this week, Caron takes up Jeremy Hunt's comments on abortion and seeks to move the debate on by raising the issue of 2 doctor's signatures being required - as she says, no other medical procedure requires this. Next up is, ah, Caron again - this time urging Nick Clegg to say no to the Tories on their fanatical obsession with saving a further £10bn from the Welfare budget. Whilst some Welfare savings may be possible, ...
I've been battering my head against a couple of bits of fiction I'm writing at the moment, for places other than this blog. Or, should I say, that I'm not writing, even though one of the deadlines is tomorrow. But I'm prevaricating *very hard* on both of them. (Don't worry, people who asked for them, ...
There's no prize at stake - just the opportunity to prove you're wittier than any other LDV reader... Here's Nick Clegg meeting U2 frontman Bono. What do you think might be being said or thought here? And the winner of our last caption comp is... Some fantastic entries for our most recent caption competition, Jeremy Browne "Wiff Waff's Coming Home" Edition. The winner, according to The Voice's judging panel of one, was this one by Keith Browning: Boris meets his match... Got a photo of a prominent Lib Dem you think would work well for a future caption competition? Then ...
Sat 13th
14:09
Will you choose Harvey's Crumpet, Munt's Bella or Birtwistle's and Horwood's rescue dogs?
Liberal Democrat Conference reps are being bombarded with entreaties from various candidates for their vote in the internal elections. I'm standing for the Federal Executive, and you can find more info on my Facebook page. There is another poll going on at the moment, and anyone can take part. The Kennel Club and the Dogs' Trust are running their annual Westminster Dog of the Year competition. The entrants, MPs and their own dogs, or rescue dogs allocated to them, vie for online votes and then take part in a "Doggie Dash" on 25th October. The Liberal Democrats have 4 entrants ...
It looks as though this column may be going down in flames, now that the Lords have appointed a new Media and 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, ...
This year we celebrated 25 years since the first Black (African and Caribbean) MPs were elected, but 25 years before this one man to paved the way. Grenada-born David Pitt first stood for election in ...
Writing and reading about Aliens vs Wizards on Thursday sparked up some old thoughts on Russell T Davies' writing, and I wanted to set them down somewhere. As I'm trying to encourage myself to blog more again (as I have been doing for almost all of the ten years since I started) I thought this would be good place for them to be set down. Besides, I haven't written at length about Doctor Who and the like for some time, and it'd be nice to get back in the habit. One of the common themes of Davies' writing is what ...
What is clear about the allegations relating to James Savile was that many involved children in the care of the state (aka "in care") - either in the UK or in Jersey. There are allegations that children have disappeared from the care system - not necessarily related to James Savile. What I have always found odd was that the government were interested in auditing what happened to the money, but
I sometimes look at other political parties and think about how closely their policies align with my own. As I have blogged about before on here I only joined the Lib Dems 4 years ago at the age of 34. It took me a long time to "pick a team" as it were and I think it is only healthy for me to keep this under review. To be honest though the very strong continuing feeling I get is that the Lib Dems are the right political home for me. Even when I disagree with things the party says and ...
Perhaps it's a pre-Leveson softening up exercise. Or perhaps we've activated a Lib Dem sleeper agent at the heart of Wapping. Whatever the explanation, Nick Clegg has been awarded the accolade — for the second time in three weeks — of being The Sun's Hero of the Week. I'm not sure the reasons for which the paper has saluted him will do him many favours with all Lib Dems, but (simply in the spirit of sharing) here goes anyway... The Sun, 12th October, 2012 Notwithstanding the fact that he was our Hero of the Week just three weeks ago, we ...
A short Council meeting with mostly routine stuff. Public participation came from Allotmenteers. The Council had (for some time) been looking at a former allotment site as a site for housing. A question to the portfolio holder plus a petition essentially asking for that view to be reconsidered. I think we were all a bit surprised when the portfolio holder agreed. Of course the evidence is
Three pieces of news on the selection front for the 2015 general election: congratulations to Sandy Walkington, reselected from a field of five in St Albans, and farewell to Ed Fordham and David Rendel, who have decided they won't go for re-selection in, respectively, Hampstead & Kilburn and Newbury. * Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.
How do you look for jobs in an industry known for biases against women? | Geek Feminism Blog (tags: ) See Track Think Train: Railway crossings TV ad - YouTube OMG YAY the PIF is not dead! See also this in the Grauniad (tags: ) Bring it, say badgers (tags: ) IFA: Apple's iPhone Tracking In iOS 6 - Business Insider (tags: ) BBC News - Badgers back in the firing line (tags: ) 19,000 Emails Against and 0 In Favor of UK Draft Communications Bill - Slashdot More power to the Huppmeister's elbow there then (tags: ) BBC ...
The problem with a set of elections where you only have one side of A5 to make your case is that one side of A5 isn't very much. It allows you to convey a fairly simple message, and doesn't leave much scope for context or detail. So, as the Election Rules allow me to use this blog as a platform, here are some more thoughts... What do I think that I have achieved in my first term in office? I have attended three meetings so far, and reported back, both on this blog and on Liberal Democrat Voice, on the ...
The Andrew Mitchell Gate-Gate story started off simply enough: politician does stupid thing, bungles apology and faces heavy pressure to quit. Add to that what I've heard from people who have worked with him, and it all seemed a straight forward story of a person with an unpleasant streak getting found out. But you know what? The longer this has gone on, the more sympathy I have with him. Hard to believe, but consider two salient facts. First, the leaking of confidential police documents (aka the statements recorded by the police, containing their version of what Andrew Mitchell said). It's ...
Note from the district council Street Trading – Final Consultation Draft 2012 Consultation on our draft Street Trading Policy We are now consulting on our Street Trading Policy. This consultation starts on 9th October and last for 12 weeks, ending on 1st January 2013. This page explains how to access the draft policy and how to comment on the proposed changes. The results of the consultation will be reported to the Licensing and Regulatory Committee on 22nd January 2013. Street Trading Policy St Albans City and District Council has resolved to control street trading. This means that you cannot trade ...
I'd forgotten just how brilliant this is. Plan A, Plan B, bankers not having a clue, but being delivered favours in government - all in 3 minutes. Nothing's changed. Genius
It's Saturday morning, so here are eight thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices... No, you're not entitled to your opinion – Patrick Stokes at The Conversation argues that proper debate relies on contested claims based on relevant expertise: just holding to your own view ain't enough. Is The Economist left or right? – its digital editor Tom Standage answers the question 'yes and no': which can only mean that it's really liberal. Boris Johnson: The man who would be king – Andrew Gimson in The Spectator profiles "the Merry England maverick ... already spoken of as a man for ...
Residents have contacted me to say that the bus stop on Brook Street at Brook Close has been knocked over by a vehicle - see right. I have brought this to the attention of the City Council and requested a replacement bus stop.
Back in August, I mentioned that Dundee Travel Active was giving every primary pupil/parent a copy of a school-specific safer routes to schools guide to assist pupil safety and safe routes to school. At that time, I featured the leaflets for Blackness, Ancrum Road and Hillside Primary Schools. Just prior to the end of the last school term, a further leaflet was produced for the pupils who will, after the holidays, attend either of the two primary schools (St Joseph's and Victoria Park, formerly Park Place Primary) or the nursery (Balgay Hill, formerly Park Place Nursery) that open at the ...
I am in the Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference in Brecon all day so this should keep you occupied until I am back. Hat Tip to Mark Pack
I confess that when I heard that the European Union had been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize I was somewhat surprised — and I was even more taken aback today when I learnt that it had won it, against competition from over 100 other organizations and individuals. Predictably Nigel Farage, UKIP and the Tory Euro-sceptics ...
