The Sunday Telegraph reports that "the Liberal Democrats are facing an investigation into one of the party's largest donors". Part of the reports reads as follows: The Electoral Commission has been asked to examine whether £775,000 paid to the Lib Dems by Rumi Verjee, the entrepreneur who brought Domino's Pizzas to Britain, is an "impermissible donation". The payments were made through Brompton Capital Limited, a company with no staff that has not recorded a turnover since 2003. Mr Verjee dined with Nick Clegg at Chevening, the grace and favour mansion in Kent used by the Lib Dem leader, a month ...
Ah, Christmas, so much free time, so little free time... Changing routines, travelling, shopping, multiple demands on your time, sundry obligations. I shall try to keep blogging meantime, though! First up for the regular Saturday Six, The Week had an article arguing that Obama is right not jump straight into a argument on Gun Control in the wake of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. The week before last I was in the audience for Question Time - Fullfact.org were the "Extra Guest" commenting on Twitter as the programme was broadcast. These are their findings. Anyone who knows me, knows I ...
From the Leicester Mercury: Leicester launderette owner Basharat Sajawal in money-laundering con
Photo: Golden Ball website "To me, there is neither virtue nor sin attached to being in the centre; and the centre has never been where I though I was." Siba the Hat takes issue with Nick Clegg's recent speech to the Royal Commonwealth Society. Harvard Gazette interviews David Hemenway, author of Private Guns, Public Health: "People think we have a violence problem in the United States, but we really don't. We're an average country in terms of all the violence measures you can think of, in terms of crime. But where we're very different is guns. We have lots more ...
For such a sporting nut as myself, I have barely touched upon what has been an incredible year in sport. The incredible Premier League finale, Chelsea's dramatic win in the Champions League, the astounding Olympics and Paralympics, the Tour de France, Andy Murray and the rise of British female tennis, Rory McIlroy and the Ryder Cup and even to end it all, a first England cricketing win in India in a generation. I happened to miss the Sports Personality of the Year Award on Sunday as I was away in Manchester. Of all the years to miss, it's a shame ...
It's Saturday evening, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from the 50+ I've linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here. Kings, queens and the political chess match – Sue Cameron ponders what the invitation to HM The Queen to attend cabinet this week could portend: 'Charles III might point to that precedent and say he would like to follow it. Moreover, he would like to attend more regularly and speak at it more often on issues like farming, the environment, architecture...' A case remains for economic liberalism – Samuel ...
The BBC and Sky have started to make announcements about their coverage of Formula 1 for the 2013 season. Sky basically have announced that it is very much status quo. David Croft & Martin Brundle remain as the voice and face of the sport as expected. Simon Lazenby keeps his spot as presenter despite criticism. Damon Hill and Antony Davidson remain and Johnny Herbert returns to the channel after joining early in 2012 and becoming a firm favourite. Georgie Thompson stays as well and Ted Kravitz leads the pit team with Natalie Pinkham getting drivers interviews. So as expected Sky ...
Merry Christmas everyone and sorry for my lack of blogging lately. It seems to be that as soon as I get other aspects of my life running okay another aspect goes to pieces - in this case the aspect going to pieces seems to be my blogging. But here's an open email I've just sent to Lynne Featherstone MP about her decision, when she was still Equality Minister, to sign off on changes which will effectively gut the Equality and Human Right's Commission's obligation to work to end prejudice and discrimination and to create an equal society. Dear Ms Featherstone, ...
[IMG: xmas Lance] A sonic Screwdriver and a Santa hat. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Lees Hotel] Slim Dusty got to Number 3 in the UK charts in 1959 with "A Pub with no beer". It was also an international hit. You can hear it on YouTube below. When we visited Queensland last summer, we drove from Cape Tribulation to Airlie Beach. It took two days, but the trip was enlivened by views of sugar cane fields. And more sugar cane fields. And the odd sugar cane refinery and railway. And more sugar cane fields. When we planned the trip we decided to break it halfway. A town called Ingham presented itself and we ...
Here are twelve things I learnt about politics in Northern Ireland this year 1. UUP play follow the leader unfortunately as neither Lord Maginnis, David McNarry, John McCallister or Basil McCrea et al realised and showed at various times it wasn't their own leader but the leader of the DUP. 2. Petitions of Concern don't need to be about the groups involved the petition of concern was designed for the bilateral differences in Northern Irish society nationalist v unionist. But in October the DUP used one to effectively veto equal marriage. Surely a petition of concern should be for the ...
[IMG: DSC_0326] In recent years I have resorted to doing virtually all of my Christmas shopping online. I've never been a fan of trudging round the shops at the best of times, and the festive crowds bring out the worst in me. It's lucky that I live in the central belt of Scotland. If I were to live up north in the rural highlands or the northern or western isles, I'd be looking at ridiculous surcharges for delivery. Shetland MSP Tavish Scott is fed up with this state of affairs and has put retailers and delivery companies on the naughty ...
Message to from SADC officers to district councillors Dear All, Land in and around former aerodrome, North Orbital Rd, Upper Colne Valley, Hertfordshire Strategic Rail Freight Interchange - Planning Appeal Decision – 5/09/0708 The above appeal, by Helioslough Ltd, was the subject of a Public Inquiry in 2009. The appeal was dismissed on 7th July 2010, but following a High Court challenge by Helioslough this decision was quashed and referred back to the Secretary of State to be re-determined. The Secretary of State has now completed his re-determination and you will be able to access his decision at the following ...
The Blaze reports: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on Sunday said he wished the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary had been armed so she could have protected the school when a gunman burst in and started spraying bullets. "I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office locked up so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, when she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said on "Fox News Sunday." HuffPo reports: In the wake of ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... David Davies, Conservative MP: 'I may well be wrong' | Politics | The Guardian All you need to do is quote Tory MP David Davies really. As Decca Aitkenhead quite brilliantly shows http://bit.ly/Ukfdu1 Sell: Cable, Umunna, IDS; Buy: sensible backbench Tories "The outlook for next year is hardly less gloomy." @RafaelBehr keenly anticipates the 2013 political year http://buff.ly/Uk4hg5 How the Olympics killed the killjoys | Tim Black| spiked 'How the Olympics killed the killjoys' | Tim Black http://buff.ly/VVYRUL OR how the Brits can do stuff when we really try (& spend LOADS) ...
It is worth watching this YouTube video. It is a programme called "Is this your life?" made by Open Media for Channel 4 in 1995. In it, Andrew Neil quizzes Jimmy Savile on a whole range of topics. In hindsight, it is a remarkable display of the evasion techniques that Savile used to avoid questions about his private life. At a key point in the questioning about his relationship with women, Savile suddenly produces a banana and eats it, finishing by holding the remains in his mouth. Andrew Neil is no slouch when it comes to interviewing. He makes an ...
You can find out when your recycling will be collected over Christmas on the South Glos website.
It is reassuring sometimes to know that we are not alone, that Liberals across Europe believe in the same sorts of things, and are willing to fight for them at the European level... The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party convening in Dublin, Ireland on 8-10 November 2012 Recognises that technological developments enable individuals all over the world to use new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to connect to the internet, thereby fostering revolutionary changes in societies, the functioning of democracy, governance, the economy, business, media, development and trade;the vast enabling, creating and catalysing potential of ...
Running a blog is a labour of love, as I know! It can be very time consuming to make it interesting and you have to get it right to be professional and stay on the right side of the law. However blogging, usually, makes very little money whilst taking up a lot of time. It is ...
I've written before about CDI's AppsForGood initiative. They work with schools and help students develop apps. Currently, they are working with 100 schools across the UK to deliver courses to more than 5,000 students. If you work in the mobile industry, you should volunteer to be one of their experts. Spend just 30 minutes having a Skype chat with a group of excited teenagers, share your expertise, hear their ideas, be infected with their enthusiasm. This isn't just a "feel good" exercise, many of the apps get built and released - and you can download them right now. App download ...
Social media was awash with incredulity yesterday at the sheer crassness of the press statement from the National Rifle Association in response to the dreadful massacre of 20 first-grade children and six staff members in Newtown, Connecticut. As the Guardian reports, the NRA's executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre finally broke his silence and delivered a defiant message to the nation that "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Their solution is to put an armed guard in every school. arm the teachers and presumably arm the kids as well. That ...
Sat 22nd
11:30
Letter from the Leader: Lib Dems protected young people and larger families from Tories' welfare cut...
Nick Clegg's Letter from the Leader sensibly flags up the speech he made this week to mark his five years as leader, giving people the chance to watch it on video. He emphasises the role the Liberal Democrats played in moderating the Conservatives' planned cuts to welfare. Some of us may well not be happy with the reality of a sub-inflation rise in benefits, but there is some credit due for holding back a much worse onslaught. Anyway, here it is in full. The last sentence is interesting - basically he says have a good Christmas and don't talk too ...
[IMG: Who Goes Home by Robert Rogers] Given the number of Parliamentary Miscellanies I've read over the years, probably the most important aspect of this volume by Clerk of the House of Commons Robert Rogers is that very little of the content in it felt familiar. That's the case even though I've also read his previous volume, Order! Order! One reason for this is that Rogers has a good eye for the Parliamentary detail which tells the reader something about wider society rather than simply being of interest to political enthusiasts. For example, he includes the Fifty New Churches Act ...
International Development minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest one... What a year 2012 has been! There are three Lib Dem policies that really stand out for me this year: the Pupil Premium, income tax reductions for low paid and middle income workers and equal marriage. Before entering Government, the Lib Dems knew there were serious social mobility problems in the UK. Only one in five young people from the poorest families achieve five good GCSEs compared to three out of four from the richest families. Through the Pupil Premium, ...
Some older people feel lonely and isolated or need help to get out and about. South Glos Council has funded 5 organisations to help support older people. You can find out more on the Precious Time website. There's information for residents, potential volunteers and organisations, stories about some of the amazing work already going on and a section where you can pledge an action. There is also a "Being a Welcoming Organisation" toolkit to help groups welcome and involve older people. If you would like more information on volunteering or are in need of support, email precioustime@southglos.gov.uk or call 01454 ...
"Elements of the conservative base are driving the conservative agenda into a political wasteland." - Spot on about the insanity of the NRA NRA want 20% of all US police officers to be stationed at schools. What about, you know, crime solving and that?! Pi Pie The Pessimistic Style in British Politics | Hopi Sen 'Not enough God, not enough guns, too many video games': are any of the Sandy Hook blame claims true? - Telegraph Blogs Andrew Mitchell and trusting the police » Spectator Blogs Government to spy on the computers of the jobless?! FFS. I hope this is ...
Dear Chris, This week it is five years since I was elected leader of our party. It feels at once like it was yesterday and a lifetime ago! The announcement of the result and my acceptance speech all passed in something of a blur. The memory that really sticks in my mind is of the next day, when I visited a school in Simon Hughes' constituency. I remember one of the students asked me what I'd do if I became Prime Minister - "theoretically of course" he added, hurriedly. And he was right: I've only got as far as Deputy. ...
The rather bizarre suggestion from Wayne LaPierre, from the National Rifle Association in the US, that the only way to protect children from 'bad guys with guns' (BGWGs) is to hire 'good guys with guns' (GGWGs) to protect US schools ranks up there amongst the more stupid ideas ever put before civilised society. However, it is not enough to say that it is stupid, one has a moral duty to demonstrate it. If all Americans have the right to bear arms, if I visit my cousins in New York, or Boston, or San Francisco, I should assume that some of ...
So, it's the first day in post apocalyptic Britain. We all seem to have survived the end of the world, so we can now look forward to a bright future, where we're all nice to each other, live in peace and harmony, make sure everyone on the planet has enough to eat and somewhere decent to live? We're going to take better care of the world around us? Sure we are. But first, a little rant. Because this is important, obviously. My friend Andrew Brown, known to you as @oneexwidow on Twitter, and author of The Widow's World is, as ...
And so the gender balance spreadsheet is up to date for the last time this year. It was a 30% series – 30% of the guests (including 3 out of 10 of the hosts) were women. The overall figures are now that 23.46% of guests and 22.95% of guest hosts have been women. This series had two shows in which all the guests (and hence, the entire panel) were men – the last time all the guests were women was in 1997. There's never been a post-Angus show with a female host and two female guests, so every show since ...
I am not aware of any meetings over the Christmas & New Year period ( weeks beginning 24th December and 31st December) If you need to contact the council over the period please telephone 01670 361668 to check opening hours So, can I take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year -- see you in 2013 !
MOAR SANTAS have been added to the Santathon. I particularly like Evil Santa and (Welsh?) Dragon Santa (tags: ) My MP is so shit he sent a jibjab ecard for Christmas with no picture This has not impressed me one jot. And when I clicked through to it, it had one solitary facebook like. Given that it got sent me, who is hardly one of Craig's best friends, it probably got sent to a lot of other people too, having one like is a pretty damning indictment (tags: ) BBC Sport - F1: Suzi Perry replaces Jake Humphrey as BBC ...
LibDemVoice is delighted to bring you A Christmas Carol, a contemporary re-imagining of Charles Dickens' classic tale, told in five staves (as Dickens called them). The fourth stave, The Ghost of Austerity Future, follows. You can catch up with Stave One, Mensch's Ghost, here; and Stave Two, The Ghost of Avarice Past, here; and Stave Three, The Ghost of Arrogance Present, here. [IMG: LDV scrooge story] As sketched by Bodz Osborne stared at the umbrella and blinked. All around him the Olympic stadium was burning and crashing to the ground and he was immobilised in a hospital bed. But why ...
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of delivering 100 Christmas pies to the residents of Magdalen House, the care home in Roseangle for adults with learning disabilities. I am pictured below with some of the residents and a rather large supply of mincemeat pies!This event took place as part of the West End Christmas events and I am very grateful to Greggs the Bakers on Perth Road, who donated the pies. A very Happy Christmas to all the folk at Magdalen House!
Just after 12.11, the actual moment of the winter solstice, my son and I found ourselves on top of Glastonbury Tor with a group of happy, excited people. We hadn't set out to be there. We were in the town and saw huge crowds gathering on the Tor, so walked up to find out what was happening. One of the things I love about Glastonbury is the variety of brightly coloured, floaty clothes (
1. Was 2012 a good year for you? The usual rollercoaster of ups and downs, but I've spent a lot of it with a smile on my face, so I'll go with yes. 2. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before? Went to a gaming convention (StabCon) Cycled all night, raising over £800 for charity (two new things in one!) Went to a burlesque performance (Sassy Tassels) Shot an air rifle Donated blood Went to a formal ball in a proper dress and everything (also Doc Martens, 'cos that's how I do fashion.) Drove a go-kart ...
