A Gatley group on Facebook now has 67 members and is building up into a good local resource – if you're on Facebook, take a look.
Ladies and Gentlemen , it's the HUNTRESS EPISODE! Hooray! All I wanted from this episode was for Helena and Laurel to be on the screen at the same time. All L wanted was for them to make out. Denied that, she said she would settle for a bare midriff. Whups, I should start from the beginning, shouldn't I? BTW, the title is from a speech in Henry V. I'm not a particularly diligent Shakespearean scholar, so I don't know the significance. Anyone wanna fill me in? The beginning is getting boring now: the initial voiceover is now the same as ...
The 300 bus – or Metroshuttle service – runs around Stockport Town Centre every 12 minutes. Jump on the bus at any stop – stay on as long as you like and take it as many times as you like. The service is completely free, there for your convenience to get you around the town.
Stockport gets – temporarily – a new car park from next Monday. The car park has been built on the site of the old Tenpin Bowling at Grand Central. From Monday until February 2013 the new car park will run alongside the existing one, giving additional parking space – particularly for station users. Next February the builders will move in and start building our new multi-storey car park on the site of the old surface car park. The new 1000 space car park should be completed in 2014. When that's done, the temporary car park will be redeveloped as the ...
Sign up to the Despatch Box, the new weekly political e-magzine from digitalpolitico.net I was about to write my inevitable response to Leveson, once again laying out why I think bringing regulation of the press under the guise of politicians is wrong. I was going to write about how disappointed I was with Nick Clegg, ...
I have to say I was fair chuffed with our boy this afternoon. Nick Clegg showed how to conduct disagreements with your partners in an orderly, respectful and calm fashion. No matter how many times people tried to get him to slag Cameron, who was, by the way, completely out on a limb today, he refused and talked about trying to build a consensus. I can't, for the life of me, see what the problem is with Leveson's clever proposal for a self regulating body with true independence - ie not full of newspaper editors or chaired by politicians. It ...
So the 1st Leveson report was published earlier and, aside from my own small contribution, the interwebs has been awash with differing takes on the subject. Here are just a few*: Caron summarises Nick Clegg's statement using the power of Storify. And you can read his statement in full here, with David Cameron's here. Of course, a free press is a core Liberal belief - and there were many in the party who felt that this cannot be guaranteed if there is any form of State involvement in the regulatory framework. Stephen Tall, for example, believes that Cameron was sticking ...
As I was leaving the office for a meeting in Swansea this afternoon, I was delayed by one of the most remarkable stories yet to emerge from the Welsh Government spin machine. It was an unbelievable own goal. The BBC explains how S4C has rejected a Welsh government call to scrap a repeat of last night's episode of soap opera Pobol y Cwm. It seems that Ministers complained after a character on the BBC-produced TV series said the Welsh government "doesn't have the backbone" to cull badgers. There was in fact a balancing view expressed on the programme but that ...
You really couldn't make it up. On the day that the Leveson Report was published, the Welsh Government sought to censor S4C by asking it to scrap a repeat of an episode of the 38 year-old Welsh soap opera Pobol Y Cwm, because of its comments on Bovine TB and the the contested issue of the badger cull. S4C have rejected the call and the repeat of last night's episode has gone out this evening as scheduled at 6.30pm. It is incredible, on the day when Justice Leveson delivered a damning verdict on politicians and the press and the often ...
Possibly there will be a proper blog post on this later, but for now I just want to express my frustration that my limbs are not of standard length (seat heights and arm lengths on jackets both big issues for me) and that I am hourglass so no motorcycle trousers ever fit me properly (either won't go over my bum or gape hugely at the waist). The other minor frustration is that the bike I unexpectedly fell in love with was a KTM, and thus is orange. Orange is SO not my colour. The kawasaki 1400 limited edition was stunningly ...
Thu 29th
18:50
The Independent View: Cross-party amendment to decarbonise power by 2030 needed to stop Osborne
The Independent reports this morning that pro-green Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs are considering a rebel amendment to the Energy Bill to create a target to decarbonise the power sector by 2030. The policy is critical to reducing carbon emissions and energy bills in the long run and creating jobs and growth. Last week, Ed Davey revealed the details of the Government's much anticipated Energy Bill which will be introduced to Parliament today. In exchange for an extremely positive and welcome outcome for the renewable sector up to 2020, Davey lost his battle to include a 2030 decarbonisation target in ...
St Philip & St James Church Christmas Tree Festival Saturday 8th December 2012 3pm - 9pm 29th November, 2012 The exhibition will open with a festive programme on Saturday 8thDecember from 3pm to 9pm when the whole community areinvited to bring along friends and family to take in the sight ofdozens of illuminated Christmas trees and enjoy the celebrations.There will be seasonal
Thu 29th
18:10
Peterborough has 3rd highest rate of statementing in country 4 pupils with Special Educational Needs...
The provision for pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) is under review and a new SEN strategy is due to be developed and implemented in Peterborough sometime during 2013. Already the local authority have discovered: • Too much funding is being targeted at high needs children. This money is arguably better spent in early intervention services. • We have a number of enhanced resource provision in schools supporting particular needs such as autism and behaviour. These need reviewing. • We do not have specialist support / provision for primary aged children with severe behaviour difficulties • Our special schools are ...
BBC Radio 4's In Our Time this morning dealt with the history of crystallography and in particular the contribution of William and Lawrence Bragg. This father-and-son team won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 for their work in this field. The father, William Henry Bragg, was educated at Market Harborough Grammar School in the days when lessons still took place in the quaint half-timbered building in the town centre.
Nick Clegg has just told Parliament that the victims of phone hacking and tabloid abuse deserve swift progress on Lord Leveson's "proportionate and workable" reforms. After the Prime Minister had told the House that he was unconvinced for the need for any changes in the law, Nick said that it was important that Leveson's incentive scheme was recognised in law so that the courts could take account of it. He also cited the example of the Irish system as having statutory underpinning. He said he wasn't aware of complaints from the many UK newspapers with Irish editions. However, he said ...
Shirley Williams tells the story of the 1981 Gang of Four breakaway, which eventually led to the formation of the Liberal Democrats, in the first issue of AD LIB magazine, out next week. "...we said, if we haven't got anywhere else to go, we'll create one." Those nascent views crystallised after the party's 1981 Wembley conference which committed it to unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the EEC and NATO. Within hours Williams, Owen and Rodgers were drawing up the plans which would lead to the creation of the SDP. "The three of us met - not Roy, at that ...
Harold Wilson said "a week is a long time in politics." That was before 24 hour TV news, the internet and twitter. Events can now spin out of control at political light speed. But the older adage of tempus fugit still applies. It's now two and a half years since the formation of the Conservative-Liberal ...
Useful as social media is I am sure that if I need to I could give it up. That does not appear to be the case though for Sally Bercow, who despite a fairly torrid experience has not just dipped her toe but dived head first back into the torrid waters of Twitter. The Telegraph reports that she is back tweeting after she had previously closed her account due to facing legal action over false claims she had made on her profile. She then issued 64 tweets in 90 minutes, including a message accusing her critics of mysogyny. At least ...
Coventry Road Bridge Yesterday I chaired the final meeting of the Connect2 Kenilworth Steering Group (www.connect2kenilworth.org.uk), following the public event to celebrate the opening of the final route section to the University of Warwick on 26 October. The Steering Group has been in existence for just over 5 years, over which time its members have campaigned for Lottery funding for Sustrans that helped make it happen, brought in all sections of the local community to the choices and decisions needed to achieve the scheme, raised petitions to save the scheme when it faced budget cuts, and worked hard to support ...
With just half an hour to go until we finally know what Lord Leveson is going to recommend, I thought you might be interested in my daughter's view on press regulation, elicited on the way to school this morning. We were talking about the habit tabloids have of getting something wrong, humiliating someone, causing real distress, in massive front page spreads and publishing the inevitable apologies in amongst the classified ads on page 39. She suggested that, instead, newspaper editors should have to dress up and make a video apology on You Tube. I guess it's a bit like the ...
One of the things that I have discovered since moving from inner London to a small, rural village in a quiet corner of the English shires is that much that I took for granted about politics doesn't apply terribly well once you escape the major conurbations. You might now expect me to grumble about the unfairness of it all, and you would be right. But not for the reasons you might expect... William Langland wrote of "a fair field, full of folk", and whilst the modern countryside would be unrecognisable to him, he would appreciate that rural communities remain fragile ...
Conversation with a three year old girl my mum looks after just now: M: what's this? (holding up the apron of a nurse uniform from the fancy dress box) Katie: it's a nurse's apron. Would you like to put it on and be a nurse? M: (thinks) no. I'm too good to be a nurse. I'm going to be a doctor. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
This is an open thread which will be updated with details of Lord Leveson's report and initial reaction to it. I will be live tweeting Nick Clegg's statement this afternoon at 4:15 and the details will be published in a separate post. 14:06 A quick summary of the findings: Legislation to underpin a new independent system of self regulation to promote high standards of journalism protect the liberty of individuals. This would not contain either politicians or press. There should be legislation to enshrine the freedom of the press and to make sure that the new regulatory system is recognised. ...
Thu 29th
13:22Ed Davey writes...The Energy Bill: A vital step for a greener, more secure and affordable energy pol...
A week after the charges levelled at Helen Grant over her expenses the dust has settled and the minister is still in post. The big question is should she? After all on top of the expenses there is a charge of ignoring constituents and their complaints and also fiddling an employees contract AFTER he signed it which I thought was highly illegal in employment law. First, looking at her expenses it should be stated that what she is doing doesn't break the rules. However it is bad form. Call me old fashioned but an elected representative should be elected from ...
The press - the popular press - is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon. - David Mellor, 1989 In just under half an hour, the Leveson Inquiry report into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press will be published. Subsequently David Cameron and Nick Clegg will give separate - and dissenting - statements on the Noble Lord's findings. It is anticipated that the report will recommend replacing the existing self-regulation with a system of regulation with "state-underpinning". Cameron is said to be in favour of a tougher, independent regulator whilst Clegg (it appears) seems more minded to accept Lord ...
The Guardian reports on what it (somewhat exaggeratedly) terms a "furious row" between business secretary Vince Cable and Michael Gove, the education secretary: A row has broken out within the coalition over the expansion of faith-based schools, with the business secretary, Vince Cable, writing a furious letter to Michael Gove's education department accusing him of flouting the 2010 coalition deal. Department for Education officials, acting on Gove's direct orders, had undermined the Liberal Democrat/Conservative deal by intervening to ensure a pair of proposed Catholic schools in Cable's Twickenham constituency would be able to select almost their entire intake on the ...
Yesterday, on the final day of my visit to Zambia, the Minister of Gender and I launched 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence in Zambia. This is a UN worldwide initiative, running from International Day of Eliminating Violence Against Women on 25 November to Human Rights Day on 10 December. I shared with the audience some of our experience of tackling violence against women in the UK – still a huge challenge – and our determination to support vulnerable women across the world. This includes a new research and innovation fund to prevent and tackle violence against women and ...
Thu 29th
12:52
Two things Lib Dems are doing that make me happy - and one where there's room for improvement
I am heartily delighted that Nick Clegg is to make his own statement on Leveson this afternoon. When there's such a complex mix of abuse of power and freedom issues, we need an unequivocally liberal point of view. The Tories don't like getting in the way of large corporations' power and Labour's authoritarian instincts need to be curbed. I expect Nick will get it in the neck from all sides but I think it's a very mature way to handle the inevitable disagreements that are going to arise during the course of a coalition. Nick isn't going to come out ...
North Korea, Ireland, UKIP, revolutions and the end of the world. Enjoy. Don't be fooled: UKIP is not a libertarian party – Alex Massie in the Spectator points out what should be obvious, but 'libertarian' has been so abused, people sadly think they are. Stand Still for the Apocalypse – Chris Hedges on the latest World Bank report on global warming, which is predicting all sorts of nightmares for the rest of the century. It really is that bad: A powerful speech on North Korea – "One challenge I always have when I speak about North Korea is I run ...
Another day - another victory for common sense at Cornwall Council. Today, councillors backed my campaign against holding ceremonies in offices. In what many saw as a petty move, the Conservatives were proposing to force those who could only afford the cheapest wedding or civil partnership service to hold them in busy registration offices rather than the bespoke ceremony rooms. Today the communities scrutiny committee looked at these proposals as well as the wider proposal to change registration office hours and to downgrade registration staff. We felt that this was a retrograde step at a time when the council should ...
The Leveson Report on the culture, practice and ethics of the press will be published today at 1:30pm. Speaking to the BBC this morning Nick Clegg said, I think we should leave Lord Leveson to speak for himself. But my views on this subject are well known. I believe in a vigorous free press that holds the powerful to account and isn't subject to political interference. But a free press does not and cannot mean a press that is free to bully innocent people, or free to abuse grieving families. I hope when Lord Justice Leveson gives his full statement ...
As far as I'm aware, there are no meetings at Blyth Town Council next week
So I'm back after a hectic trip to London, made more chaotic by the inevitable rail delays because of the awful flooding in northern England. Getting there a few hours late is nothing compared to having your home or livelihood threatened or destroyed by rising flood waters. On Monday I left Edinburgh at 11:30 in order to get to London at 15:54 and on to my meeting at Westminster at 18:00. The weather was dark, wet and gloomy and by the time we arrived in Newcastle, the conductor's announcements were becoming increasingly pessimistic. Twitter had tales of replacement buses and ...
Compare and contrast... [The] Xerox 914 copy machine ... was used in soviet embassies all over the world. The machine was so complex that the CIA used a tiny camera designed by Zoppoth to capture documents copied on the machine by the soviets and retrieved them using a "Xerox repairman" right under the eyes of soviet security. Xerox Helped Win The Cold War And Samsung printers (as well as some Dell printers manufactured by Samsung) contain a hardcoded SNMP full read-write community string that remains active even when SNMP is disabled in the printer management utility. A remote, unauthenticated attacker ...
According to the Beeb, Nick Clegg is now 'non-commital' about the Communications Data Bill and is likely to use a Parliamentary report into it as a reason to withdraw support. The joint MP/Peers committee apparently states, 'The Home Office has failed to make the case for the new laws' among other criticisms. If so this is good news - but why has it taken so long for Clegg to make the right decision? Is there no-one around him with the right liberal instincts and political antennae to have seen this many months ago?
[IMG: Great Wall of China] On 14 Nov 2012, Xi Jinping was elected as the new Communist Party of China (CPC) General Secretary in the 18th CPC National Congress of the People's Republic of China. In his first speech to the press on 15 Nov, Xi Jinping, together with the 6 new elected members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, put his focus on continuous open reform and strong CPC governance responsive to the Chinese people's needs. Also, he mentioned that China's revival (China's rejuvenation) will be a continuous important national goal in his new government. Every Chinese person ...
Today's the Castle Ward Day of Action, with people from lots of difference agencies (including Essex Police and the Council) carrying out a variety of different tasks around the ward. There's a lot more information about it here, and if you're in town there's an information booth in Culver Street West (outside Halifax) with representatives from lots of different agencies and organisations giving out advice and information. Along with my colleague Cllr Bill Frame, I've just been watching Junior Speedwatch in action, which was interesting. It's an action to tackle speeding in one of the areas it's been reported and ...
In a brilliant piece, Mark Wallace points out that those of us in the blogosphere would be a lot better off with state regulation of the press, but that doesn't mean it's right. "So I, and Guido, and a thousand other blogs yet to be born would be in a pretty good position should Brian ...
The announcement of a consultation on imposing a 45p per unit minimum alcohol price is, in general terms, a good thing, although it is no substitute for a broader, cross-departmental, rational strategy to encourage responsible drinking and harm reduction in a manner which respects individuals' fedom. It will do substantially more good than harm – although there are minorities in all three main parties substantially against it. In the case of Liberal Democrats (and presumably the same is true for some Tories) the opponents are libertarians who either believe in unfettered market forces or do not believe the state should ...
It is unusual for The Sun to come out critical of the system. This Article by Jane Moore is not officially from "the sun", but it is exceptional to get this reported. It properly identifies the flaws in government policy in keeping what is happening in the courts secret. "IT can no longer be ignored by those who purport to be in charge of this country that something is deeply rotten at the core
Thu 29th
10:00
New Standards of Care for People Living with HIV must apply in Northern Ireland as much as England -...
With the news that the British HIV Association has published its new Standards of Care for People Living with HIV 2013, which set out to secure high quality care for people with HIV in the UK, at a time when patient numbers are rising and the NHS changes the way HIV treatment and prevention services will be ...
Lib Dem international development minister Lynne Featherstone is currently on a trip to the southern African country of Zambia. Her first visit was to the capital, Lusaka, and to a UK-funded empowerment programme for adolescent girls. Over to Lynne: This programme is supporting more than 1,500 of the most vulnerable girls, providing safe spaces and mentoring to help build their confidence and life skills. The girls I met told me they were learning about their rights as women. One 16 year old girl said she now felt more confident to say no to unwanted approaches from boys. Another said the ...
On Monday, a report was been published and submitted to Shepway Joint Transportation Board's meeting of 3rd December. Stick with me. This gets more interesting. The agenda for the meeting is at The report on the agenda that caught my eye was at item 9 "Common sense plan for safe and sensible street lighting" Reading that report was a huge eye-opener for Folkestone West. The key section of this report read: Removal of surplus lights along main routes In the past, extension of street lighting went far beyond the required needs so we are removing around 3,100 street ...
Anonymous letter labels MS sufferer 'scrounger' (From Gazette) Demonisation of the disabled is working its magic (tags: ) UK Polling Report on the zombie statistic of UKIP costing Tories lots of seats (tags: ) Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart Coming Back For 'X-Men: Days Of Future Past' - Deadline.com (tags: ) BBC News - 'Urine pouring into' MP Ben Bradshaw's office (tags: ) Mark Thompson: What is a "lifestyle illness"? (tags: ) Alice Cooper: "Rock Bands Need More Testosterone and Fewer Beards" | Alice Cooper | Official Website Of course, they could also have oestrogen LIKE YOUR BLOODY GUITARIST YOU DOZY ...
To what sorts of things do people have moral rights? That's a profound question worthy of more than a mere blog post. We could turn to the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for inspiration. We'll see an aspirational list of rights which still, more than 60 years after its adoption, many countries fail to deliver in full. In that list at number three we have: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Now we know that "liberty" and its realisation is a complex concept. It can, though, incorporate access to adequate housing ...
Stand strong, Nick. Do not cave to Cameron over Leveson because if you do so, you go against your party's wishes and, according to the polls, those of 86% of Daily Mail readers! As a journalist, I have long defended the principle of a free press as a vital plank of democracy. The protests of journalists that we are facing the abyss are not unfounded. Yet there is a myth about the British press that is more fantastic than many of the stories it publishes; the myth that we have a "free" press, at all. The sheer quantity of coverage ...
Stephen Tall's latest post opposing Secret Courts following his recent appearance on Voice of Russia radio – including Lord Strasburger's speech in the Lords' secret courts debate: Lib Dem peer Lord Strasburger's speech is an absolutely brilliant dissection of the Government's case for secret courts, and well worth reproducing in full here. Well worth a read.
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I was a guest this week on Voice of Russia radio to discuss the issue of secret courts. (Like almost all Lib Dems, I'm opposed to them.) You can hear the discussion here: The British Government wants to introduce Closed Material Procedures or 'secret courts' for civil cases involving sensitive information about national security. In the controversial procedures, the defendant won't know what evidence is brought against them and neither will their lawyer. Critics say the principles of fair and open justice would be eroded by the Bill, currently before Parliament. But the Government says it would only affect a ...
Good, good, good: The Lib Dems might withdraw their support for government plans to give the police new powers to monitor email and internet use, the BBC has learned. Party sources say leader Nick Clegg is ready to use a parliamentary report, due out next week, to oppose the plans... Sources said Mr Clegg met the Prime Minister face to face earlier this week to discuss the issue and was "noncommittal" about the bill's future. The loss of Lib Dem support would place a question mark over the future of the bill as the Conservatives would struggle to push it ...
As part of West End Christmas Fortnight, I was very keen to organise a community tour of the new shared campus for Balgay Hill Nursery School, St Joseph's Primary School and Victoria Park Primary School and I am most grateful to the Director of Education for agreeing to this. Last night, about 30 community representatives and local residents joined Lorna Ferry from the Education Department, Mrs Alison Starke, Head Teacher of Victoria Park Primary School and myself in a tour of what everyone agreed is a superb new educational facility for local children. Alison and Lorna gave an excellent guided ...
From Sheena Wellington: Golden voiced mezzo soprano Helen Brown is the guest at the Friends of Wighton Cappuccino Concert on Saturday 1st December. Helen, accompanied on piano by Helen Boyle, will present a programme of mainly Burns songs, including some unusual gems from the Wighton Collection. The concert starts at 11a.m. with doors open and coffee and newspapers available from 10.30a.m. Tickets are £5 (includes coffee). Saturday's concert is part of Scotland Sings - the full Dundee programme, which will be updated daily, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/scotlandsings. You can also download a Scotland Sings poster here.
When I'm bored, I think about and research races. I do this A LOT. Which is one reason why I wind up running a fair number of them. Of course, marathon training is a VERY good excuse to sign up for races, as well. While I know the benefits of doing long runs without being in a race (and please don't misinterpret: I cherish those long runs and the time they give me for contemplation, catching up on podcasts, and proving to myself that I'm tough), it's fun to throw a few races in your schedule as well. So, at ...
It is a great TV programme, loved the world over by millions including me. Dr Who is a marvellous creation and thanks to re-generation can keep on re-inventing itself and changing the actor who plays the lead role. But which Doctor is the best Doctor? Well, it's another one which is a matter of personal opinion rather than a question which comes with a definitive answer. It's also one driven very much by the era you probably became first entranced by the Lord of Time. For what it is worth here, in reverse order is how I rate them. What ...
Self regulation of the press in the United Kingdom has failed. The Press Complaints Commission, far from being a fair minded and independent body which protects the individual from trespass by the media, has proven itself to be rather like a bunch of foxes deciding not to eat chicken for lunch after having decimated the ...
