Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. While I personally have my issues with participating in it, due to the intersectional nature of trans murders, I feel it would be remiss not to acknowledge it. Natalie Reed has a blog post of a similar nature. It contains links to voices of trans women of colour instead of her own voice. Instead of copying from there, I'm going to link instead. My only comment is one I made on Twitter this afternoon which appears to be quite popular on tumblr: Just because it's Transgender Day of Remembrance, doesn't mean you should forget ...

Posted by Will on Liberal Will

Rather appropriately the tune to Onward Christian Soldiers is written by Arthur Sullivan, no doubt if he and W.S. Gilbert would be getting down to write and Operetta about the Church of England, women bishops and gay clergy right about now. In the meantime here is a little something to sing to that tune of his. Onward, Church of England, inching to reform With selective bible standards cited as the norm. Christ, the royal master, treating women as the men But he got that wrong, for ever and Amen! Refrain: Onward, Church of England, inching to reform With selective bible ...

Posted by Stephen Glenn on Stephen's Liberal Journal

Here - and only 26 days late - is October's K25 treat: a video of Kylie rehearsing Come Into My World for her Proms in the Park appearance. The fourth Top 10 release from Fever, it was co-penned by Cathy Dennis, who also has credits for Kylie's Can't Get You Out of My Head, Britney Spears' Toxic and Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl. This version of the song features on her new album, the sublime The Abbey Road Sessions which was released at the end of last month. Andrew

Posted by Andrew Brown on the widow's world

Friday Another trying day with Heath. This afternoon, I suggest we go to the village school to watch the little mites rehearse their Christmas play. "Very good," replies the normally estimable Heath, "but I'll take this bazooka just in case we run into a badger." As we stroll down my drive past the lake (and his missile launchers), he asks me which play the school is giving this year. "Toad of Toad Hall," I tell him. "It's one of my favourites - better than all that gloomy Scandinavian stuff they go in for these days. It's based on The Wind ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

I'm pleased that the theme of this year's Conference is Peru and the Persistence of Inequality. Those of you who have read The Spirit Level or spent any time on The Equality Trust website will acknowledge that there is evidence to show that a correlation exists between inequality and social malfunction. The greater the degree of inequality, the worse the physical and mental health of the population, the greater the misuse of illegal drugs and alcohol, the higher the rates of crime and violence, and so on. The statistical evidence from OECD countries for this statement is abundant and convincing, ...

Posted by Eric Avebury on Eric Avebury

Ripon is the fourth smallest city in England, so its cathedral is never far away. Here it is seen from the south across the River Skell. Perhaps its outstanding feature is the crypt from St Wilfrid's seventh-century church on the site. The Ripon Cathedral website clams it is "arguably the oldest church building in England to have remained in continuous use". You can enjoy a tour of the crypt on video.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Like a mighty tortoise Moves the church of God. Brothers we are treading, Where we've often trod. We are much divided, Many bodies we, Having different doctrines, but Not much charity. Full words here. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post

Posted by Paul on Liberal Burblings

Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Spice Kittens.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

As a devout atheist, I share the sorrow of my Anglican friends at this ridiculous decision and as a devout Liberal, I believe it's time to look at disestablishment again. If the CofE wants exemption from equality legislation, then it should join the other churches without the privilege of being the state's church. The media keep reporting that the synod had voted against women bishops.

Posted by David on Disgruntled Radical

Congratulations to new Launceston town councillor Ashley Crapp who was tonight co-opted onto the council. It was a close result with Ashley receiving seven votes and Leighton Penhale six votes. James Rea also put his name forward for the position. Commiserations to Leighton who also stood for the last town council vacancy where he lost out by just three votes. He's getting closer to victory and my hope is that he is successful in his next attempt - whether a co-option or election. Tweet

Posted by Alex Folkes on A Lanson Boy
YouGov

Representatives from Peninsula Community Health attended tonight's meeting of Launceston Town Council to update members on the situation at Launceston Hospital. It wasn't quite to full roasting that PCH got at the recent scrutiny committee but was at least a light grilling. Some members, including Graeme Facks-Martin, said that they were not satisfied with the explanations given. One significant change since the scrutiny meeting is the number of beds currently closed. At the time of the scrutiny meeting it was said that seven were out of commission. Now that number has risen to ten. A second change from the scrutiny ...

Posted by Alex Folkes on A Lanson Boy
Tue 20th
21:27

An ash tree disaster?

There are 80 million ash trees in the UK and it is estimated that 95% will be affected by the fungus Chalara fraxinea, I quite like ash trees. There are other trees with pinnate leaves that I happen to prefer like the rowan tree but the ash isn't bad. That is unless you live near them. They are huge with thousands of seeds that fall distinctively. Consequently those who live near ash trees think of them as weeds. I used to live near them and my neighbours told me how bad they were. I didn't particularly agree but I did ...

Posted by Michael Gradwell on Politics for Novices

European Commission Vice President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano have today signed a Joint Declaration in London, committing to make the Internet a safer and better place for children. In the Declaration, Vice President Kroes and Secretary Napolitano: agree to implement joint campaigns on the occasion of an annual Safer Internet Day. As a first step, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security intends to participate in the EU's Safer Internet Day for young people on February 5, 2013.commit to contribute to international cooperation in fighting child sexual abuse online in ...

Posted by Andy Pellew on Focus on Bar Hill

The government says it wants customers placed on the cheapest available tariff and if you are paying more then you will be switched automatically to your supplier's cheapest rate. Consumer groups warn that the plans could mean some of the cheapest tariffs on offer disappear. Well companies will want to make what they consider to be a fair profit so they tell us that the government plans will lead to less choice for consumers. Well I don't want a huge choice. I don't want to work out whether I am on the best tariff from the company that provides my ...

Posted by Michael Gradwell on Politics for Novices

If some companies are avoiding corporation tax then there are those who say that they are doing nothing wrong. They say that any criticism should not be aimed at companies like Amazon or Google or Starbucks but at the government which allows avoidance. I have written previous blogs on the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Carr, and the latter at least decided that what he did may have been legal but it wasn't ethical. In the case of Starbucks it may be that their coffee outlets in the UK aren't making a profit but how do they allow their traders in ...

Posted by Michael Gradwell on Politics for Novices

Neil Elkes, the Birmingham Post reporter and columnist, has an interesting article in the Birmingham Post at the moment. You can read it in full through this link. The attention grabbing aspect of the article is a description of how Cllr Stacey, one of Acocks Green's two Labour representatives on Birmingham City Council, and the Cabinet member for Commissioning, Contracting and Improvement, was recently 'sent packing after only a couple of minutes in front of the partnership, contract and performance scrutiny committee.' Cllr Stacey had failed to give the cross party committee a report on his work in advance of ...

Posted by rogerharmer on Roger Harmer

As a Roman Catholic (of sorts, I at least have the good grace to feel guilty about my non-existent church attendance), I am the last person to take pleasure over the Church of England's discomfort over women bishops. No, really I am, even if I do occasionally refer to it as religion for people who are not keen on this 'God business'. But the vote by the Church of England laity to (effectively) reject the notion of women bishops does bring into sharp question the right of bishops to sit in the House of Lords and make law for the ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on The view from Creeting St Peter

Congratulations ORG: [IMG: Open Rights Group logo] Monday evening at the 2012 Liberty Human Rights Awards ceremony, the Open Rights Group won Human Rights Campaigner of the Year Award, jointly awarded to us and 38 Degrees. The Award was given for our work campaigning against the Snooper's Charter: that's your work, emailing and visiting MPs, submitting evidence to the Joint Committee and now, organising local campaigning across the country. Liberty also highlighted the range of work we do, on copyright and censorship as well as privacy.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Liberal Democrats receive more cash donations in 2012 Q3 than ANY other UK political party (and raise nine times as much as UKIP) Link:

The General Council of Monty Python have today rejected moves to enable women to become directors of Monty Python films. This comes twenty years after it was agreed that women could attempt to tell jokes on screen, but were not allowed to ascend to the position of director. Hopes had been high that women would be allowed to achieve this status, however opponents had pointed out that the holy texts had made it perfectly clear that women were only allowed to direct if they were portrayed by Terry Jones in drag. The Forward in Farce group – which opposed women ...

Posted by Nick on What You Can Get Away With
eUKhost

Scotland's SNP Government is having a bit of a torrid time at the moment. There's been allegations of ministerial bullying, then the First Minister gets caught out not only misleading Parliament, but doing so in smug and gloaty style, and then the Education Secretary has to make a grovelling apology for an earlier transgression. Not very edifying at all. So it must have been really gratifying for Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil to get a tweet from someone called @SirIanBlair saying how well the SNP were doing on policing up here. How amazing to have the approval of the former ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Earlier today there was a aniti hospital closure demonstation on Whitehall before over 50,000 petition signatures were handed into 10 Downing Street. I was there with Liberal Democrat Councillors Nigel Bakhai and Andrew Steed and Gary Busuttil from Southfield who has been very active in this campaign. Gary Busuttil with a large number of petitions No member of the Conservative party was present so does this mean that they are for closing Ealing and other local hospitals? As many of you know the Accident & Emergency and maternity wards of a number of local hospitals including Ealing and Charing Cross, ...

Posted by Gary Malcolm on Councillor Gary Malcolm

Because of reasons – except who needs a reason for this? – I decided the other week that I really needed to read more historical lesbian fiction. "Like Tipping the Velvet!" I said, because that was the only one I really knew. Except, "No," says Becca. "You have to read Fingersmith," because I've read that one and then you can tell me about your feels!" So because I never disobey Becca with regards to story consumption, I obediently bought it for my Nook. Two days later I wandered into her room – which is a thing I do whenever I ...

Posted by Debi on Thagomizer.net

The following post is a statement by Liberal Youth Chair Tom Wood regarding the issue of certain chants being advertised by an NUS Vice President. Earlier today NUS Vice President (Union Development) Vikki Baars emailed Students' Unions Leaders across the country, encouraging the use of an offensive chant calling for Lib Dems to be burnt. ...

Posted by editorlibertine on The Libertine

I joined the Church of England at age of 4. That was 9 years ago. My earliest memory is of colouring in pictures of Jesus in Sunday school and joining the children's parade at the end of the Sunday service where every child would bang his/her tambourine as loudly as possible. Now, I help out at services as an MC. I love going to church and being a Christian is a big part of my life but something weird is happening. My beloved church is voting on whether to allow women to become Bishops! What is even worse is that ...

Posted by Maelo Manning on libdemchild, aged 13

Tomorrow, thousands of students are expected to descend upon the capital, placards in hand, in the hope their voices will be heard on educational matters. As, of course, is their right. But, as always, these things come with their own ... Continue reading →

Posted by Stackee on Stackee

According to the latest figures for declared donations* to political parties, the Liberal Democrats have brought in more money than Labour from private donors and companies (i.e. excluding trade unions), making it 11 quarters out of the last 13 where that has been true: Liberal Democrats: £454,747 Labour £353,455 Good work once again by all those involved in Liberal Democrat fundraising. * i.e. donations above the threshold for reporting to the Electoral Commission.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Credit: Shabnum Mustapha It's been a good few weeks for Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore. First of all, he was described as Westminster's answer to James Bond by John Rentoul in the Independent for his role in bringing about the Edinburgh Agreement which set the process for Scotland's independence referendum. Rentoul said: Salmond has been underestimated before, although support for independence in opinion polls has rarely exceeded one third of the electorate. But he may have met his match in Moore, as skilful in judging the politics of Whitehall as he is the mood of Scotland. ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

My report on the November meeting of the Liberal Democrat's English Council is now up on Liberal Democrat Voice. The English Council is the governing body of the Liberal Democrats in England and meets twice a year to consider matters of importance to the English Party. This post is part of a series of posts I've been writing for Liberal Democrat Voice this year reporting on the activities of the English Party. The main issue I have highlighted in the report is the decision of the English Party to carry out a review of the organisational arrangements made for the ...

Posted by Andy Strange on Strange Thoughts
Tue 20th
16:30

Hopeless in Gaza

The Gaza Strip isn't a big place. You can walk across it in an hour or so. I know because I've done it. That was in 1979. I had just graduated, and a group of us from Cambridge were volunteers at Kibbutz Be'eri on the edge of the strip. The kibbutzim largely ignored their neighbour, but we were curious, and talked about visiting it. One of the local Israelis suggested that we'd have our throats cut, but mainly I think the reaction was "What do you want to do that for?". We dithered. Then one morning two of the girls ...

Posted by Matthew on thinking liberal

Here's another of Ros's interventions that I hadn't covered, from 28 June 2011... Ros has been concerned about the impact of the less reputable park home sites, especially given that many of the residents of such properties are relatively elderly and therefore vulnerable. There are a number of such sites in Mid Suffolk, where land is cheap, and campaigners have encouraged Ros to seek action from the Government. Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat) To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to bring forward legislation regarding park homes; and, if so, when. Baroness Hanham (Parliamentary Under Secretary of ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on The view from Creeting St Peter

This is a report of the meeting of the Liberal Democrat's English Council held last Saturday (17th November 2012) at University College London. The English Council is the governing body of the Liberal Democrats in England and meets twice a year to consider matters of importance to the English Party. Review of Police and Crime Commissioner elections campaign The main topic of discussion at this meeting was how the English Party should respond to the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. There was general agreement that the way the Party had handled the run up to these elections had been, shall ...

Posted by Andy Strange on Liberal Democrat Voice

Cambridge MP Julian Huppert is to join a cross-party group of MPs to fight for a fairer deal for Cambridge's sixth form colleges. Julian has been invited to become a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Sixth Form Colleges which has been established to protect the future of the colleges nationwide. With Hills Road Sixth Form College and Long Road Sixth Form College educating thousands of 16 to 18-year-olds in the city, Julian is working to make sure they get fair funding and the same benefits as school sixth forms. At the moment, sixth form colleges receive less ...

Posted by Amanda Taylor on Amanda Taylor

Reports in the Independent and other media that Enery Secretary, Ed Davey will today outline proposals to ensure all households are on the cheapest energy tariffs is very welcome. The paper says that Mr. Davey is expected to announce that energy companies must end complicated competing tariffs, reducing the maximum number on offer to four. Energy companies will also be required to automatically move customers on to the cheapest available tariff, although customers will be able to opt out and go with a tariff they feel is better suited. They add that experts say that the current difference between the ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

- by David Green, Chair of Liberal Youth Scotland The Liberal Democrats is a party that has delivered the Green Deal for Scotland. The party that has given this country the Greenest Government ever and party are that is leading the Green Agenda. Indeed, in the Scottish Liberal Democrat 2011 manifesto, the party committed to work towards achieving 0% waste in ...

Posted by editorlibertine on The Libertine
Tue 20th
14:36

The NUS are so classy

The above is a screenshot from the official NUS Demo2012 Facebook event, due to be held tomorrow. The post, from NUS Vice President Union Development Vicki Baars reads: "Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put the tories on teh top, put the Lib Dems in the middle and burn the f***ng lot!' ...

Posted by Charlotte Henry on Digital Politico

Nick Clegg has started sending weekly emails to my inbox. As I research political communication, I was interested to see that Clegg and his team had taken a new approach to the mass membership email. I recently carried out a large survey of Liberal Democrat members. Oddly, a large proportion of respondents commented that they weren't too keen on the emails from Party HQ. I was initially puzzled as much of the research in this area suggests that emails are an effective way of building up a relationship, and encouraging activists to do more. The common view suggested that they ...

Posted by Rebecca Tidy on Liberal Democrat Voice

This week I had the novel experience of agreeing with Ed Miliband. This event does not happen very often but while reading his interview in the Sunday Telegraph and his speech to the CBI, I found myself nodding several times (instead of nodding off - my usual reaction to his speeches). He put it very well, referring to sleepwalking towards the EU exit and about the danger of Britain becoming a nation of low wages, low skills, 'an off-shore low value economy'. I am sure these words were music to CBI ears. There was no mention of an in-out referendum, ...

Posted by Keith Nevols on Keith Nevols

The other day the Independent reported that our dear leader is discussing a trade-off for the next budget where unemployment benefit and income support for poor people would be frozen (a real terms cut) in exchange for slightly higher taxes on wealth. This is new flexibility from Nick Clegg which is, apparently in order to "ensure the pain of the cuts is shared fairly." This makes my blood boil. What on Earth is fair about extra wealth taxes if the money raised does absolutely nothing to protect the poorest? Could someone please explain the logic of this to me? The ...

Posted by George W. Potter on The Potter Blogger

Earlier this month was Living Wage Week which was the first ever UK-wide week devoted to highlighting the need for employees to receive a wage they can live on. The week saw the campaign generate much publicity, starting with Boris Johnson announcing an increased rate of the London Living Wage to £8.55 an hour (compared to its national rate of £7.45) and Ed Milliband pledging to extend its implementation through Government contracts. More Liberal Democrats need to learn why the campaign for greater take up of the Living Wage is so important. While we have praised those employers that have ...

Posted by Stephen Knight on Liberal Democrat Voice

I went down to the office In my constituency There was a great big pile of leaflets a-waiting there for me The organiser told me To go and get them out And then come back for some posters and put them all about Oh I got too much stuff to do I got the Lib Dem activist blues I spoke to the cand'date He's nothing like me He's white and grey and suited and he told me to be free But I got too much stuff to do I got the Lib Dem activist blues I went round the doorsteps ...

I'm not a big fan of URL shortners - bit.ly, t.co, goo.gl, ow.ly, etc - I understand the need for them, but they seem to offer a fairly poor service in terms of privacy and usefulness. Take this recent example from Vodafone. [IMG: Vodafone SMS] Aside from the obvious downsides (user doesn't know where the link will take them, if it's compatible, link looks like gobbledegook, etc) there is a rather more interesting issue. Goo.gl - along with many other URL shortners - give everyone access to your statistics. Visiting http://goo.gl/NdVGI+ will let you see everything. [IMG: google vodafone stats] ...

Posted by Terence Eden on Terence Eden has a Blog

There is much rumbling amongst their Lordships at the imminent threat of the Prime Minister to appoint more Peers, to achieve a better balance of party representation. He can legitimately claim that he is only reflecting the votes at the last General Election. Labour can hardly complain because - not only did they get the lion's share of the immediate post-election intake in 2010 (29 compared with 15 Conservatives and 9 Liberal Democrats) - but Tony Blair and Gordon Brown between them nominated 173 Labour allies over their 13 years in office. However, the anxiety is shared across the House. ...

Posted by Lord Tyler on Lords of the Blog » Lord Tyler

Liberal Democrats have always been proud defenders of the rule of law. As our manifesto stated in 2010, the values of 'fairness and the rule of law' lie at the heart of our foreign policy. However, just as we call on other states such as Burma, Belarus and Zimbabwe to respect the rule of law, so we must be ever vigilant that there is no weakening of this fundamental principle at home. The Liberal Democrat policy on the Justice and Security Bill at conference in September was a powerful reminder to the leadership on how seriously we, as a party, ...

Posted by Richard Wingfield on Liberal Democrat Voice

Prime Minister Boris and other things that never happened, edited by Duncan Brack and Iain Dale, is the third in a series of collections of 'what if' histories (one of which I contributed to myself). This time it is 22 counter-factuals all by different authors, taking events that really happened, adding a little twist and then seeing how event played out. Or rather 20, along with two forays into the possible near future with Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. As with the previous volumes, each author has the freedom to pick their own style, varying from whimsical fictional accounts to ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Tue 20th
10:49

Botanic Unblocked

It's not often that we can put party politics to one side and post some good news. Last week I spoke to my colleague Cllr John Dodd about the work being done by his colleagues on the Botanic Gardens Community Association. The association is chaired by David Cobham, a key member of The Southport Party. After many years of failure by Sefton Council, David has finally managed to solve the problem of stagnant and rising water in the boating lake at the gardens. His persistence and constant nagging finally led to the unblocking of the culvert that drains the lake ...

Posted by Mike Booth on kew focus

If the BBC has been feeling a little cursed of late it can at least feel blessed in having Rupert Murdoch as an enemy. For the truth is that the BBC and Murdoch need to each other to justify their own world view and block any threat to seriously reform either of their vast empires. In much the same way as the Labour and Tory parties use each other's existence to drown the genuinely radical voices out of British public life whilst they tinker at their edge of whichever of society's problems the particular interest groups they represent care about, ...

Posted by David Thorpe on Liberal Democrat Voice

Fearing for the future "My fear is that we're in a position similar to Italy's in the early 90s, and all we're lacking is a Berlusconi to come along and take advantage of the situation. The main political parties are all seeing their membership dwindle and their capacity to engage the public be correspondingly reduced, and there's a huge vacuum waiting to be filled." - Nick Barlow springboards from one of my posts and soars into scaring the crap out of me (tags: ) Faith and the Labour Party | Kirstin rambling and ranting Interesting point which (I think) apply ...

Next week (26 November 2012) is the start of 'Empty Homes Week'. This is a week to raise awareness about the problem of empty homes in Britain – the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of empty houses, yet many people cannot afford the homes that they need. The latest stats provided by the Empty Homes group are that Bury has nearly 3,000 empty houses – roughly half of which have been empty for more than six months. The Government is providing money to local councils (e.g. the £145 million empty homes fund) to start to tackle the problem. ...

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone

Those of us who have been around a while will remember fighting nationwide elections we knew we couldn't win. European elections were always like this until the nineties, when we suddenly made a (minor) breakthrough even before PR voting was introduced. So in the scheme of things Thursday's PCC elections were nothing new. We didn't manage a second place but equally our core vote came out, even in areas where the English Party rules or regional party discouragement meant that unnecessarily we did not have candidates in place until the last minute. We showed that we do have something to ...

Posted by Chris White on Liberal Democrat Voice

The local business community in Prestwich is asking for our support to help fight a proposal to cut the business support and town centres manager role at the Council. A review of 'Destination Management' services is to reduce 5 full time jobs to 1 full time and 1 part time. Our local businesses are concerned that they will lost the support of the only post which currently helps the business community in the towns outside of Bury itself (Prestwich, Whitefield, Radcliffe, Ramsbottom etc). In recent years there has been some significant success in developing the business life in the smaller ...

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members have responded, and we're publishing the full results. Just 1-in-20 Lib Dems opt for full privatisation LDV asked: In general, would you like to see more or less government involvement in running the country's railways? 41% – I would like to see the railways fully nationalised 34% – I would like to see more government regulation than there is currently, but stopping short of full nationalisation 16% – ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice

Last week, following concerns raised with me from local residents about damage to the bollards at the south end of Kelso Street, I contacted the City Council's Roads Maintenance Partnership about this. The bollards had damage that had resulted in sharp edges that could cause injury so I was pleased that the council responded as follows and has already undertaken the work to remove the damaged bollards: "The Road Maintenance Partnership inspector has raised an order for the replacement of the four bollards at the south end of Kelso Street leading to the steps to Blackness Road. The broken bollards ...

Tue 20th
05:30

If

The call came in the middle of the night. For each member of the President's entourage, the message was the same, delivered with military precision: "Get up, get dressed, the President is leaving in one hour." Hotel rooms throughout Phnom Penh subsequently echoed with a chorus of crisp cotton sheets being whipped back, the sound ...

Posted by Christian on Whirled Peas