It was a real honour to be present at the members' meeting to elect the new Liberal Democrat PPC for Newbury constituency this evening. The choice of candidates was very wide, with each presenting a very different case in a variety of styles. Judith Bunting was overwhelmingly elected. By my calculations she received 92% of the first preferences. She really stood out throughout the campaign. Her style of presentation was extremely poised and articulate. She came round and spoke with most members during the campaign, and took great trouble to learn about people's concerns about West Berkshire. She very much ...
According to Buffy creator, Joss Whedon. Enjoy...
St Lawrence's in Lawrence Street, York, stands almost opposite the birthplace of Henry Scott Tuke. is a large Victorian church. I recall being a little intimidated by it when I cut through the neighbouring alley as a student. In its churchyard stands this tower, a remnant of the earlier, church on the site where Sir John Vanbrugh was married in 1719. It dates from the 12th century, though its top storey was added in the early 16th. The Norman north doorway of the nave was re-erected against the east wall of the tower when the rest of the old church ...
I am sitting here considering yes or no to renewal.... if I am to consider the other parties (Labour/Conservative/Green), I cannot see the attraction or interest.But looking at my own party which I have belonged to for a long time, I cannot see the point either at the moment,,.. We are tied into a coalition ...
Today ballot papers started arriving at the homes of Liberal Democrat members in London so they can choose the order of the list of candidates for the European elections in 2014. There are nine candidates for eight places (a tenth, Elaine Bagshawe, has withdrawn). The Liberal Democrats are a democratic party, so everyone who has ...
Fri 2nd
20:14
Movember: I have gone clean shaven to help raise money for prostate and testicular cancer
As many of you know I have had a beard for a quite some time but as you know we are now in Movember (not November) where some (brave) men go clean shaven and grow a moustache to raise money to reduce prostate and testicular cancer. I have taken the plunge. I am looking to raise £500 this month and hopefully you have a spare tenner or more that you might like to donate to the cause. Here is the link to make kind donations. Pre shave Post shave More information can be found on the Movember website. On the ...
For the past few weeks East Midlands Trains has been playing a new announcement at its stations. It tells you not to smoke, that you are being observed by CCTV but should keep you luggage with you at all times, and "for your own safety" to run not walk. It feels as though you have alighted at a high-tech Approved School. Given the eye-watering cost of rail fares these days, I would like to be treated as a valued customer. But having heard this announcement several dozen times I will settle for being treated like an adult.
With eight days left before our Elections, I want to let everyone who will be voting that despite having thoroughly enjoyed my time as Policy and Campaigns Officer I will be standing for the position of Chair (Welsh Convenor). Here is my manifesto for everyone who will be voting in the elections to look over; My manifesto ...
Here's Robert Plant from an obscure Spanish TV show in the days before his voice 'went' with a fantastic accoustic version of 'Whole lotta love'.
I've posted before about the use of the word bigot. I've always said that while people may agree with your point of view that doesn't make them a bigot, what does lead to bigotry is the way that you over expound the difference using non-factual, inaccurate arguments or even over-egg the debate. Yesterday was the Stonewall awards and as is traditional there is the bigot of the year award. Hardly surprisingly Cardinal Keith O'Brien who won it spoke out against the award, but so too the recipient of the politician of the year, the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson. Now ...
Tom Smith - Obituary (Telegraph): I want to to tell you all about two men, very briefly. In the link above is my Great Uncle Tom's obituary in the Telegraph. I never knew my Uncle Tom very well, but he worked for various aerospace companies on various projects - including the design of a British equivalent to the Space Shuttle in the 1960s. I'm very proud of him for all he designed and all he dreamt up. If you Google him, then you'll get US patents in his name. I wish I knew my Great Uncle Tom better than I ...
121875: Conversion of offices to apartments, with an additional floor, Northgate Street 121944: Change of use from office to guest house, North Hill. Please note that I am a member of the Council's Planning Committee for this municipal year. This means that I'm required to act in a 'quasi-judicial' manner with regard to applications before the Committee and as such, can't make comments in favour or against planning applications as I may then have pre-judged them before they come to Committee. I can give advice on planning issues and what to do if you have a comment or objection. However, ...
(cross posted from over on Lib Dem Gains - which I intend on resurrecting once the next fortnight is out of the way!) ...come to Bristol instead! Two weeks yesterday we have a Mayoral Election in Bristol. If you are anywhere near, your help in support of our candidate Dr Jon Rogers would be much appreciated. As you are no doubt aware, Bristol is currently a minority Lib Dem administration. The Labour candidate is currently favourite and a win by him would see a Mayor drawing his cabinet from the minority party on council! With Jon as mayor we can ...
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 Ed Balls denies that he denied there was a structural deficit (44 comments) by Mark Pack Green councillor's verdict on his party as he resigns: "They attract the gullible and the authoritarian" (14 comments) by The Voice Opinion: The importance of party unity over the economy (109 comments) by Paul Reynolds Opinion: Hard-headed realism should guide our dealings with the Conservatives (105 comments) by Andrew Tennant Introducing Libby Local, Episode 1: "I wasn't going to be a ...
It has been a while since I did one of these It's Friday it's five o'clock things. So before I start here is the prerequisite safety announcements. Even if you have read by blog and the It's Friday series please pay attention, especially around 1:40 Of course the film of the week is Skyfall which sadly because of this horrid flu I have yet to see. Though I am still looking forward to seeing it having followed the videoblogs in the built up. There were so many to choose from but here is one that gives an insight into the ...
Last night Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson MSP, was booed at the Stonewall awards. Leading gay news website Pink News report that "Ms Davidson said it was wrong to use the term "bigot" and that it was important to "respect ... Continue reading →
From Stockport Council: Visitors to Stockport town centre will be able to park for free in Council-owned pay and display car parks and on-street bays from 2pm on Wednesday 14 November. STEPS and The X Factor's Matt Cardle are amongst the acts that will be performing at the Christmas lights switch on event, which starts at 2.30pm and is organised by Merseyway Shopping Centre. The famous lights switch on and crowd sing along will be at 7pm. Councillor Iain Roberts, Executive Member for Economic Development and Regeneration at Stockport Council, said: "Merseyway's Christmas lights switch on is always an extremely ...
More comedy genius from Clarke and Dawe:
With the impending demise of Liberal Democrat News, the question of what to do about advertisements for Parliamentary and other candidate selections suddenly becomes important. Happily, the English Candidates Committee is on the case. Returning officers around the country have received an e-mail from Great George Street as follows; Dear Returning Officer, As you may be aware, Lib Dem News is changing to be a monthly magazine from 16 November onwards and the old libdems4parliament site no longer functions effectively. As such, in future, selection adverts will go direct to the Candidates Office and adverts will be hosted for free ...
I wrote almost exactly two years ago about the failings of so-called 'self-regulation' in the Lords. Despite the jaded tone of the piece, I was genuinely optimistic that a group set up by Lord Strathclyde - under the able Chairmanship of Lord Goodlad - would come forward with good proposals to improve things and these would be taken on. The first happened, the second didn't. That is, Lord Goodlad and his group came with a well-argued set of rational proposals to improve the way we conduct our business, but much of the advice has simply been ignored. This was the ...
As soon as my iPod updates its software so I can use it, I am off to spend who knows how long on what is currently passing for public transport in New York City, so I can meet up with Cam and get the luggage desperately needed by one of the Sandy refugees currently taking shelter (and electricity, and hot water and internet) in our apartment. So I just have time to squee about this fic that was written for me in the Avatar Ladyfest: savor belonging to yourself Pairing: Korra and Asami gen; mentions of Korra/Mako Summary: Asami's not ...
If the world is a consistent place, I am about to bring myself to the attention of the police. So be it. A disabled activist in Wales posted on the web some stuff that was critical of ATOS, the company carrying out Work Capability Assessments on disabled people on behalf of the Department of Work and Pensions. Let's leave aside for the moment that it's difficult to say anything truthful about ATOS without it being critical. To her astonishment and distress, she received a visit from the police. Not just any old visit. By her account she lives on her ...
Just so people know, I won't be writing any more music books after the two Beach Boys ones I promised to write. It seems that no matter how clearly I label the books, or how much I make available for free, the majority of people buying them who care enough to post reviews have four ...
The sad fact is that the UK has the highest proportion of pedestrian road deaths of any European country - followed closely by Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece. An even sadder statistic is that the most common cause of death among 5-14 year olds (more boys than girls) is being a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle. All the evidence suggests that moving from a 30mph to 20mph limit on residential roads will reduce the death toll. A recent PACTS (Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety) report found that child casualties fell by 67% where 20mph schemes were introduced. So, ...
Page 3 defender Peta Todd, Charity worker, former model I'm probably about to draw a lot of flak from this but.... I agree with Nick on the subject of Page 3 and the sun. Liberals can, and cannot tell newspapers what to print as long as they are not infringing on other people's liberty by phone hacking or over intrusive journalism and unfortunately Page 3 is not one of those things. I will, however quickly remind you all that I do think that some sort of age limit is needed on topless material as it is in movies. That would ...
Sign up to the Despatch Box, the new weekly political e-magzine from digitalpolitico.net I am always loathed to give Conservative Future's Ben Howlett attention. It rather inflates an already sizeable ego. However, yesterday he caught my eye on Twitter, when ... Continue reading →
Hertfordshire's Liberal Democrat county councillors take action against Conservative propaganda. Liberal Democrat Councillors were forced to threaten legal action against Herts County Council after links to the Conservative spokesman's press release on the unpopular New Barnfield waste development appeared on their County Council webpages. Councillor Malcolm Cowan, member for Handside and Peartree, who first complained, says 'I was looking to see information had been published about how I am spending my highways locality budget, but what I found was a link to a highly controversial statement by a leading Conservative about how great it is that an incinerator may be ...
Citizens House in Consett needs your memory. Citizens House started life on Front Street, opened as a Young Citizens' Club in December 1948 following a gift of $20,000 from American workers through the Congress of Industrial Organisations and the American Federation of Labor. There will be some people still living in Consett who remember working of the building which was described as "more like a stable than anything else when bought'. Some time around the 1990s the organisation agreed with Derwentside Council to its demolition in return for which they were allowed to occupy the current Citizens House on Station ...
The elections for officers and members of the ALDC Management Committee were completed on Wednesday 31st October. The new committee will serve a two-year term to 2014 and will officially take office on 25th November 2012. Here are the results in full: Statement of Persons Elected ALDC Management Committee 2012 - 2014 Statement of Persons Nominated By the deadline for nominations the following candidates have been nominated. Elected unopposed Officers: President Veronica German (Torfaen) Chair Cllr Claire Hudson (Mendip) Vice-Chair (2 positions) Cllr Isobel McCall (Milton Keynes) and Cllr Kath Pinnock (Kirklees) Treasurer Cllr Sarah Boad(Warwickshire) Members: English Representative Steve ...
Fri 2nd
11:52
Opinion: Heseltine report puts the State back on the hook for helping lead economic recovery
The lack of a joined-up growth strategy has been this Government's Achilles heel. This week's report from the Heseltine Review finally provides one. Some on the Tory backbenches will urge David Cameron and George Osborne to ignore many of the recommendations, and the swathes of evidence standing behind them, in favour of abdicating responsibility for the economic recovery to the private sector. Jacob Rees-Mogg predictably caricatures the findings as favouring a 1960s approach to regional development – his preferred course being deregulation. The Heseltine Review embodies a growing consensus as to what should underpin a 21st century growth strategy: Britain ...
I'm currently getting involved in the Coding For Kids scene. I'm setting up a workshop in my local library to teach kids programming - specifically, the MIT language Scratch. I've been left slightly dissatisfied with the unstructured nature of the Scratch teaching materials. While it's quite fun to teach a cat to dance - it doesn't seem to be building up to anything. I'm also working with AppsForGood - it's a project run in secondary schools which aims to get students to research, design, and build a mobile application which will be useful to them or their community. One of ...
Boris is clearly in disarray. When standing for election he was clear no police station front counters would be closed without a replacement service as good or better. He's just reconfirmed this in answer to a question from Caroline Pidgeon. But his Deputy and Met Police are ignoring him – the old East Dulwich Police station on Crystal Palace Road (until very recently used for SE London firearms unit) has been sold and the current East Dulwich Police station is apparently up for sale. All Dulwich councillors came together to agree this letter: DulwichCllrs_PoliceStation In it we ask the Deputy ...
It would be fair to say that this week's preview is, how should I put it, rather provisional, as a large chunk of next week's scheduled business is... ummmm... no longer scheduled. That may have something to do with this week's developments over the Election Registration and Administration Bill... Election registration bill withdrawn from Lords business as Tories facing defeat over cancelling boundary review.They still won't succeed. — Chris Rennard (@LordRennard) November 1, 2012 However, here's what we're expecting... It's fair to say that Monday's business has been gutted, following the temporary withdrawal of the Election Registration and Administration Bill, ...
Alright, I'm a little bit of an anorak when it comes to local politics. Fair enough, following the County and District Council Twitter feeds is not for everyone, but as a parish councillor, it's handy to know what they're going to do to me as early as possible. Yesterday, this Tweet came from the County Council;SCC News: Scrutiny Committee endorses Cabinet decision to transfer care homes tinyurl.com/a2noard — Suffolk CC (@suffolkcc) October 31, 2012I have to admit that this didn't come as much of a surprise. After all, the Chair is a Conservative member, and eight of the twelve members ...
On Friday 26 October at 10.50am, Adam Rowe, my best friend since our days at university together, died at the age of 42 after a long battle with liver disease. We have known each other for 24 years and it has been heartbreaking to see how he has struggled with his health over the last few years. So, in case you were wondering why my blog has not been updated, despite being in the middle of a campaign, then this is the reason. It has put things into perspective. This week I have been preparing for two speeches at two ...
I spent months canvassing for the Euro-elections last time around. No voter said they wanted more EU spending. Only one voter (step forward, Welwyn Garden City) told me that we would get his vote in the Euro elections because his normal party was too anti-European. So Stephen Tall is right to suggest a doorstep test on EU finance. And no one should be very surprised that the House of Commons voted in favour of a cut. But Nick Clegg was surely right yesterday morning to point out that a real-terms cut is undeliverable. The negotiations on the next MFF (seven ...
The SEMMMS website now includes 3D visualisations allowing you to see what it would be like to drive along the proposed A6 to Manchester Airport Relief Road in each direction. And driving in the other direction....
I'm not ashamed of being a man, but I am ashamed of the things men do | The world tells me (tags: ) Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months with zero instruction | DVICE (tags: ) Cigarette that kills non-smokers launched "Quantum Fags were developed by scientists who believe passionately that cigarettes were killing the wrong people, as non-smokers are generally more annoying." (tags: ) MULTICOLOURED TARANTULAS found UP TREES in Brazil • The Register Purple tarantulas! How cool! (tags: ) 12-year-old uses Dungeons and Dragons to help scientist dad with his research | Not Exactly Rocket Science | ...
Modelling of the traffic flows around Stockport suggest that the planned A6 to Manchester Airport Relief Road will significantly reduce traffic through Cheadle and Gatley villages. The figures from the modelling, which will be published on the SEMMMS website shortly and be available at all the public exhibitions, show that traffic through the centre of Cheadle – along the High Street and Gatley Road, will be quite a lot lower with the relief road than without out. The new road is predicted to cut traffic (compared to what it would be if we didn't build the road) on most of ...
The ballot papers for the selection of the Liberal Democrat candidates for the next European elections are going out. Here in the East Midlands I shall be giving Phil Knowles my first preference. One reason for this is that I have known Phil for almost 30 years. We were members of Harborough District Council together back in the 1980s. So I know what a good campaigner he is. It was Phil who taught me that three Liberals having a beer around the kitchen table could become "a meeting of concerned local residents" in a press release. More recently, he has ...
And neither of them is the old 'is the plural referendums or referenda?' 1) Various people push the 'we need a referendum on Europe because the people haven't had their say on it since 1975′ argument. If that is the case, shouldn't we also be having referendums on our membership of NATO, the UN, the Commonwealth and who knows what else? The people have never been given a say on those, and if you're really concerned with the popular will, then surely those questions should come first? 2) For the sake of this argument, let's assume that the referendum on ...
The New Statesman is highlighting a "Quote of the Day" from Treasury minister David Gauke today regarding the child benefit cuts (taken from an interview by Paul Waugh and Sam Maccrory on Politics Home): "I think there's a lot of people who are in favour of reducing the deficit but then when it's something that affects them there can be a degree of fiscal nimbyism." Well hasn't Gauke got a point? This will affect the top 15% of families. You can't get a much more progressive attempt to cut the benefits bill. Of course people are going to complain when ...
OK, I know due legal process and all that is important. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. But sometimes you don't have to wait until the police and legal systems have done their stuff to have a firm view. And when you look at all the evidence the media has been reporting, it's pretty clear he's guilty, isn't it? It's even become a standing joke that you just have to look at him to know he's just the sort of person who would commit those crimes. Perhaps like me you heard the jokes on the last episode of the ...
November's important Police and Crime Commissioner election will decide the future of policing in our area. Here in Andover it's a straight choice between the Conservatives, who have let down Hampshire residents on crime and failed to protect front-line police from cuts, or the Lib Dems who have stood up against County waste and cuts and campaigned to keep front-line police on our streets! The Conservatives running Hampshire have the wrong priorities. They voted to make further cuts to the police budget just days after a resident was shot in both legs by armed raiders, ignoring warnings from the Chief ...
As part of the forthcoming West End Christmas Fortnight activities, Magdalen Artists are exhibiting again at the Vine - its great to see this taking place and details are given below:You can download a better quality PDF of this poster here.
Whatever happened to the old local Race Equality Councils? You remember them, the office with dirty windows lowering the tone of the High Street. Management committees that played out internecine battles between different communities. Yes, it's true ...
Two key race equality experts look set to be ditched by the quango responsible for upholding anti-racism laws. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) appear set not to renew the appointments of Simon Woolley ...
This show is getting both more interesting and more ridiculous. Diggle is awesome, Laurel is less so, and that John Barrowman shows up, but not until the end so if you were planning to watch when he appeared, you don't need to watch this one. So when we realized Ollie was killing people in this show, I was worried that that was going to be just the way the show worked. Throw the Batman Rule out the window, Punisher with a bow only not as interesting, douchebag of the week blah blah. Then there was that one face Ollie pulled ...
