Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. 1. Improving Beeston Town Centre Congratulations to Stephanie Wilkinson and the team at the Beeston business Improvement District who have this week secured £10,000 of Government funding to make Beeston town centre more attractive. This should have a real benefit to the town centre and I look forward to seeing the results of it. The BID team were also able to confirm this week that vacancy rates for shops in Beeston were well below the ...
[IMG: Kaleidoscope: A Multimedia Fanwork Exchange] Kaleidoscope Fanwork Challenge Site Map | Guidelines | FAQs Kaleidoscope is a multimedia fanwork exchange hosted by for rare chromatic source fandoms running for a second year. We are open to all sources with chromatic characters or people and by chromatic creators and welcome artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories and vids. Our Kaleidoscope AO3 Collection and Kaleidoscope Treats AO3 Collection are now live with ~56 fanworks! It's basically all Becca's fault that I signed up for three different fic exchange challenges this year. Which probably just goes to show what an awesome friend she ...
To Holbrook, in heavy drizzle, for a fundraising lunch at the Royal Hospital School, hosted by the High Sheriff on behalf of the East Anglian Air Ambulance and the Suffolk Foundation, we drove, not entirely certain what we'd find. What we found was a cross-section of Suffolk society, all there for drinks, canapes and a chance to catch up with old friends. Admittedly, there aren't a lot of 'out' Liberal Democrats at these things - not 'our sort of people', I suspect - so it feels a bit like an exercise in anthropology, studying 'suffolkus gentrificus' in its natural environment. ...
Yesterday I was listening to Any Answers and of all the subjects on Any Questions, the possibility of cutting benefits caused the most replies. The subject came up because Iain Duncan Smith announced on Thursday that child-related benefits for families may be capped at two children. He did this because he feels that benefits meant that some families no longer thought about whether they could afford to have children. According to Iain families had to cut their cloth according to their capabilities and the money available. The welfare state looks after the poor and needy and if you have children ...
I could have written this blog a few months ago as I had noticed a new pelican crossing in Galgate, just south of Lancaster. I saw it again today as I drove past it. There is a pub called The Plough on one side of the road and four houses on the other. It may well be the case that the siting of the lights is significant. Well it is for me because I just can't see how it can be used unless you happen to live in those four houses. Everyone else can cross the road at the nearby ...
Just as Evensong finished in St George's there was a series of explosions outside. So much so that a large group of the congregation gathered in the Narthex to find out what was going on. It was no problem it was just the Hallowe'en Firework display starting from next to the Lagan. Today has been ...
I have to travel from Morecambe to the M6 fairly regularly and I have written previously about the traffic problems on the Morecambe to Lancaster road. However there are protestors who aren't keen on a proposed link road, mainly because of its environmental impact. This week we discover that otters in the River Lune will delay matters further and increase costs. Those who are opposed feel that this is a reason to cancel the plans despite all the procedures, delays and added costs that have already taken place. It is ironic that if the road does not get built then ...
They have nobbly bits on them – see right. Great film. Lots of luvvy darling Judi. Albert Finney plays a great role, alhtough I didn't recognise him. Lovely to see the old DB5 getting a run out. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Reblogged from Andrew McFarland Campbell: This is the text of the talk I gave to the Accepting Sexuality group. Abstract There are two passages from the New Testament that are often quoted as proof that you cannot be gay and Christian: 1 Corinthians 6.9-10 and 1 Timothy 1.9-10. The New International Version of the former ...
This weekend I spend most of my time out campaigning for the Liberal Democrats: yesterday in my home Borough of Haringey and then today further south in Croydon where there is about to be a parliamentary by-election. Now, in practice this means a lot time spent either: Delivering leaflets/tabloids/letters/other literature addressed to voters; or Knocking on doors, seeking to have conversations with voters directly. Whilst I quite enjoy number 1. since it ensures I get some exercise and can listen to a decent playlist for the duration, number 2. is where the magic happens. To put this in context, let ...
Not long back in the door after Scottish Lib Dem Conference and the follow-up Liberal Youth Scotland event in Edinburgh. Major news includes the formal approval of the Home Rule Commission headed up by Ming Campbell. I make little secret of the fact I support going further than the party, up to and including independence, but felt I had to support the proposals of the Home Rule Commission as they are a significant improvement on the status quo or what is being offered by others in the event of a "No" vote in 2014. Here is what I said: "When ...
[IMG: Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice] I've been away for a few days but emails have kept me in touch with the debate that has been going on about Osborne's proposal to sully Employee Ownership. It will have escaped few readers notice that Martin Horwood MP has signed the open letter published on LibDem Voice which was very critical of the idea that employees should swap their rights for minimal ownership options. I am confident that Martin is not the only Lib Dem parliamentarian to oppose this nonsense. I posted yesterday that there would be a parliamentary vote on this ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 297th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (21-27 October, 2012), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Two SNP MSPs ...
Sun 28th
18:45
In other news... Nick talks Dutch, Farron's footie boycott, Hemming's whistleblower charter & mo...
Here's a round-up of stories we haven't had time to cover on the site this past few days... Nick Clegg insists on speaking Dutch at Cabinet Office meeting (Telegraph) Nick Clegg, who speaks five languages fluently, chose to conduct a recent meeting at the Cabinet Office with Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, entirely in Dutch. Did the Deputy Prime Minister, whose mother is from the Netherlands, do so to outfox a Downing Street official whom David Cameron had allegedly sent to spy on their conversation? "Nick enjoys being able to talk Dutch," the Liberal Democrat leader's spokesman tells ...
Local campaigners in Andover are backing European Member of Parliament Catherine Bearder's campaign to ensure waste is managed responsibly and not exported to third world countries. Many local councils have already signed up to the campaign I hope Hampshire and Test Valley will do the same. Visit for more this campaign!
John Spurling in his introduction to J.G. Farrell's unfinished novel The Hill Station, reflects that the feelings of sadness and disappointment he felt when he first read the incomplete manuscript were inevitable, and that: The only antidote is to be warned in advance and to enjoy what there is of the journey without expecting any proper destination This week on edX 6.00x has been a little like that I suppose. The problems with PSET4 (the edX word game – similar to Scrabble or the popular Channel 4 TV show "Countdown") I mentioned in my earlier post were eventually partially resolved, ...
Very neat: each month one ward wins a prize for best campaigning and building up of their organisation. The prize? Two free tickets to the next local party pizza and politics event. The result? A bit of fun and thank you to encourage wards – and done in a way that then lets the key ward activists in turn reward some of their helpers with the free tickets. They get to feel good and thanked too – and in a way that gets more of that wider group of people coming to local party events. All in all, very neat. ...
The conclusion of the reposted adventure of Odanglesex County Council and the Statistical Unit. This is of course fiction. Fact is stranger than fiction. FROM: Kenneth Spotlessnob, Assistant Chief Executive and Director of Transformational Excellence and Strategic Vision TO: Edelbertha Spengler, Chief Executive cc: Conor O'Connor, Director of Human Resources Development Ed: Transportation and Settlement are arguing, perhaps a little combatively, that our new Statistical Unit overlaps with the Statistical Services and Processes function currently placed in that directorate under Neville Potts. It is clear that our statistical work needs direction management and a coherent approach to deliver the Council's ...
We went to the Tate Modern recently. We saw early twentieth century art which explored ambiguous, disturbing images and dreams. Female sculptors depicted fantastical women as drinking vessels, or as Diabolo players entwined by their own diabolical game. The horror of war was a subject for art and contemplation, not just another brief film of routine carnage on the nightly news. The mood was shattered by the eight-year-old whose T-shirt was loudly emblazoned with a twenty-first century slogan, "AWESOME!" It took me a while to work out just why this felt so incongruous. Being in an art gallery, I had ...
Tomorrow Lord Jenkin of Roding will ask the Government what their plans are for a geological disposal facility for nuclear waste in the United Kingdom. I hope to get in a supplementary about the 100 tonnes of plutonium stored at Sellafield, to follow up a letter I wrote the Secretary of State on September 23, see below. If Parliament is to assess the relative merits of the alternatives for disposal of the large stocks of plutonium, it is essential that there is transparency on the costs of storage. This consideration must override commercial confidentiality, and the Freedom of Information Act ...
It is sad to record that my sister Olivia died yesterday in Canberra, Australia, just short of her 86th birthday. We were 22 months apart, and were brought up closely together when we were little. During the war years, too, we spent a lot of the holidays with one another at Wildwood, Shanty Bay with Uncle Doug and Auntie B Woods, our wonderful foster-parents in Canada. Back in England at the end ofthe war, she was in the WRNS and I was at Oxford, so our paths didn't often cross, and then after she married Geoffrey she went to Australia. ...
Whilst away on holiday I casually looked at what the BBC was reporting on one day and nearly blew a proverbial gasket. Lord Bichard had been floating the idea that pensioners might be forced to carry on working within the ... Continue reading →
People who receive help to put their rubbish and recycling bins and boxes out for collection are being reminded to let the council know if they still require the service. The county council is updating its records for people who currently get assisted collections to check if their circumstances have changed. If you have assistance with your bins, or know someone who does, please make sure the council get to know the correct position. We all know the heartache it causes when communications go wrong on a subject like this.
can be seen as you drive into Consett.
Sun 28th
13:45Date for your diary - 17th December: LibDemVoice Xmas drinks, followed by Steve Richards' Rock 'n Ro...
Here's a date for your diary... On 17th December, The Independent's Steve Richards will bring his Rock 'n Roll Politics to London for a Christmas special. Premiered at this year's Edinburgh Festival, where it earned rave reviews, here's how the show is billed: Award winning BBC broadcaster and columnist, Steve Richards, takes you behind the scenes of British Politics and the media, the characters, the absurdities, the tragedies. Laugh and cry as you are taken on a whirlwind tour from Harold Wilson and David Bowie in the 1970s to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, via Paul McCartney and ...
Good to see more good use of the new freedoms for campaigning and questioning in Liberal Democrat federal committee elections, this time by Andy Hinton putting candidates for the Federal Executive (FE) on the spot over security checking for the party's two federal conferences held each year. You can read Andy's question and the answers he has received from FE candidates here. I've also put together a more general Q&A about how the elections are being run. (Declaration of interest: I'm standing in the committee elections too, though not for the FE. You can see my Federal Policy Committee manifesto ...
Well come to the reliably late Sunday Six. Let's crack on... You turn if you want to - Cleggie's not for turning. Richard Morris points out that, when it comes to incompetence in the Government, it's the Blue side that is all over the place. Mark Thompson has little time for those playing up the "exceptional circumstances" in the latest GDP figures. Over on The Spectator, there is praise for the BBC's Panorama team - and laments a lack of Freedom of Speech in workplaces across the country. A benefit of being late in posting this edition means I can ...
When you take men and turn them into killers, history shows massacres, abuses and war crimes are inevitable. Oliver Cromwell sacked Drogheda and Wexford; soldiers carried out the killings of the McDonalds at Glencoe in 1692; William Calley was convicted of the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam War. There is even an ongoing debate in historical circles about whether the bombing of Dresden in 1945 was justifiable within the context of the war. And lets not forget more recently Lynddie England at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War. Five Royal Marines were arrested and charged with murder in ...
Rather to my surprise, I find that I have never chosen this track as a Sunday music video. It comes from a concert filmed for Finnish television early in 1967, when Steve Winwood was 18. He soon left the Spencer Davis Group to form Traffic, having tired of what was essentially copying Black American records. But while he was with Spencer Davis, no British musician was better at this copying, as a singer, keyboard player or guitarist, than Winwood. As to why I was surprised... Five tracks from that Finnish concert have been featured here before: Dust My BluesI'm a ...
The Rutland Times does hard news: Avenue of yew trees suffers 
infestation of voles
As with every time the clocks clock back this morning I have seen friends (mainly from down south) say we should have kept them as they were to have an extra hour of darkness in the evening. Yesterday here in Belfast the sun rose at 8:17am, today it rose at 7:19am. Without the clocks going back it would rise after 8:30am by the end of this week and 9am on the 18th November, it would next rise before 9am on the 8th February without the clocks going back to GMT. That would over 3 months. In Cardiff the sun would ...
The news that we are to deploy more drones controlled from GCHQ, in effect doubling our capacity in Afghanistan, should raise important questions for Liberal Democrats. The announcement that the current 5 UK Reapers have already flown 39,628 hours and ... Continue reading →
Sun 28th
11:30
Willie Rennie's speech in full to Lib Dem Conference - from Dalai Lama to Rev IM Jolly to nursery fo...
In full, Willie Rennie's leader's speech to Scottish Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in Dunfermline, 27 October 2012: You know I'm going to start by talking about 'strong liberal voices'. It says it right here. It says it on the wall behind me. It's how I live my political life. It's what all of us try to be every day. Thinking. Working. Speaking up.You will remember that the Dalai Lama visited Scotland in June. I was fortunate to have an audience with his Holiness in Dundee. I attempted to relay to him the joy his visit had brought to our country. ...
Sun 28th
11:15Green councillor's verdict on his party as he resigns: "They attract the gullible and the authoritar...
Norwich Evening News reports the decision by one of the city's Green councillors to resign from the council just five months after he was elected: A Green city councillor has resigned little more than five months since he was elected - blaming the party's "profoundly undemocratic" methods. David Rogers informed Norwich City Council of his decision yesterday, after expressing his dissatisfaction with how the Norwich branch of the party is run. Nelson ward member Mr Rogers said the party attracted the "gullible and the authoritarian", which he said was a "dangerous combination in party politics". Mr Rogers said: "I agree ...
This links to a radio programme (in English) about forced adoption. Note the story recently in polish express. I am not commenting on Friday's events as yet beyond what I said in The House. I had been assured by people that the government would allow the bill to pass, but this did not happen.
Fear and loathing in Athens: the rise of Golden Dawn and the far right – I don't know how much it's emphasised for the story, or if it seems worse than it is because of the focus on one angle, but Greece sounds like a country with some major problems right now. Stephen becomes first councillor in the UK with Down's Syndrome – Great story, and even better, the comments below are almost completely positive. Light Entertainment – Andrew O'Hagan in the London Review of Books on the Savile scandal and the rather disturbinglight world of British light entertainment. Conference ...
With the proposition of the new HUB airport still grabbing all the media attention and every political sinew within the Medway towns it is time to look at one of the best alternatives - HS2. One of the major problems with airport capacity is the amount of short range internal flights such as Eastleigh ( ok, Southampton airport) to say Newcastle turning a five and a half hour train journey into an hour and twenty minute flight with check in and check out- you don't even need to drag your luggage up and down escalators or across London on the ...
Friday night was not good. I sat down to watch a little television and all of a sudden felt very ill. Seriously, I couldn't even drink a glass of wine. I wondered how on earth I was going to cope with Liberal Democrat Scottish Conference the next day. I felt a bit better in the morning and hoped that the adrenaline would get me through the day, but I set off for Dunfermline feeling not very enthusiastic and wishing I could just stay curled up on bed - or at least on the sofa in sympathy with our poorly sick ...
The director-general for the European Commission's Enterprise and Industry Directorate recently stated that within Europe we are losing a generation of potential entrepreneurs. Crespo highlighted statistics stating that the percentage of young entrepreneurs in the US is much higher than that in the EU. Following this there were calls for a Europe wide strategy to ...
It's really rather a good feeling being a Danish Brit nowadays. Repeated requests for jumper-knitting instructions are admittedly a drawback, but one I can live with. More interesting are daily questions about policy matters as practised Borgen style. (For those who've been living under a stone for the past several months, "Borgen" is short for Christiansborg, the Danish Parliament building as well as the title of the appointment-to-view Danish version of the West Wing). "How is it that the Skandis apparently get it so right?" Or "How can you be the happiest people on earth while, at the same time, ...
Another great sketch from Australia's Clarke and Dawe:
Misguided? The footpaths around the bus stops in Houghton Regis have had their kerbs raised and footpaths relaid to make it easier for the elderly and people in wheelchairs to gain access to the buses without a ramp. We won't know if this will always be possible because it's likely that on occasion wheels will get stuck in the gap. In any case this particular path in my ward, in Parkside Drive, would be too narrow to get a wheelchair along. DEVELOPMENT COSTS The capital costs of the busway scheme are around £90million, (DfT £80m, local councils and private sector ...
The Hard Numbers Behind Scholarly Publishing's Gender Gap - Research - The Chronicle of Higher Education (tags: ) The Inescapable Gender Wage Gap (tags: ) What Male And Female Scientists Say About Women In Science (tags: ) Sexism in the skeptic community: I spoke out, then came the rape threats. - Slate Magazine (tags: ) The benefits of being in this together In which Tim Harford MONSTERS George Osborne (tags: ) Choose my PCC Enter your postcode and it gives you little potted histories of the various candidates in your area. (tags: ) Bradford Council meeting about the Odeon « ...
Sun 28th
06:38New LDV members' survey now live: your views on the economy, crime and security and the Coalition
The new LDV members' survey is now live. So if you are one of the c.1,300 registered members of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum — and any paid-up party member is welcome to join — then you now have the opportunity to make your views known. Questions we're asking this month include: what you think of 'secret courts', elected police and crime commissioners and prisoners' votes; what you make of the Coalition's economic policies, Council Tax benefit, 'shares for rights'; what you think about the railways and 'Page 3′; what you think about tuition fees 2 years after the Lib ...
I have received a complaint that the shrubbery at the public path that runs from Hawkhill to St Peter Street down the east side of Blackness Primary School is overgrown - see right. I have taken this up with the City Council, requesting that the shrubbery be trimmed.
The new Dundee Adult Learning newsletter is now available and can be downloaded by clicking here. The West End opportunities in the newsletter are as follows:
I'm feeling fairly good. Work isn't as good as it perhaps ought to be (my latest philosophy work was not so good, although my maths somewhat made up for it), but I can try and rectify it as ever. I'm slightly concerned about falling behind in logic, after failing entirely to do some of the
