Favourite moment of university so far is my anatomy lecturer's scathing criticism of vampires seen on a TV documentary: "These self-described vampires, they use anti-clotting agents when they phlebotomise their mates, so that they don't end up like flat-cap wearing Lancashire blokes chowing down on a black pudding... the mix of intelligence and sheer stupidity is astounding." Student life continues to be excellent. The workload is intense but manageable, I'm maintaining a social life both in and out of uni, and I'm utterly knackered but still very excited. Tomorrow I find out where my first placement will be, which means ...
Over the past few years I have been working with my fellow Lib Dem Town Councillors to ensure that an alternative was proposed to Conservative Ribble Valley's Core Strategy which proposed a minimum of 1300 new houses in Clitheroe. We also put strong objections into the subsequent major planning applications that followed them To help residents understand what we have been up to I thought it would be useful to have all these documents in one place Core Strategy response Planning Application for Land off Henthorn Road Planning Application for Primrose and land off Woone Lane Planning Application for Standen ...
This week's Countryfile, shown earlier this evening, looked at three subject that have already been written about here. The first was Rushton Triangular Lodge, which I visited back in June 2009 on one of my first days out with one of those digital cameras they have nowadays. The second was the new distillery at Harrington, where they make Warner Edwards gin, though this blog's chief interest in the village has generally been that nuclear missiles were once based there. Finally, the programme showed the start of the 1951 film There Go the Boats, which has been posted here. To save ...
Labour are attacking the reduction in the top rate of tax with a banner headline saying '£100,000 win for everyone earning one million pounds'. Let's do the maths. The top rate of tax applies to earnings over £150,000 so if you earn £1,000,000 then a 5p in the pound reduction in the top rate would apply to earnings of £850,000. It is fairly easy to work out that this would give individuals a saving of £42,500 which happens to be less than half of the £100,000 claim by the Labour headline. I don't agree with a reduction in tax for ...
Look I know no-one knows exactly who wrote this and Snopes has an entry on it but it is nevertheless a light-hearted way to show how the tax system works. Enjoy. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100... If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this... The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay £1. The sixth would pay £3. The seventh would pay £7.. The eighth would pay £12. The ninth would pay ...
Last month, I mentioned here in my blog about my decision to try and raise over £2,000 for the British Heart Foundation by undertaking a 12,000ft Parachute Jump. Dad and Mam being given a BHF Wall Plaque in appreciation for their fundraising efforts The response I have received in the 5 weeks since has been brilliant and I have now raised £990 - tantalisingly close to that £1,000 mark! Thank you to everyone who has contributed already to this brilliant figure and whilst I must accept that I have been shameless in my requests of friends so far, I do ...
No panda this time, just Jezza B, his partner, and their new baby daughter, Molly. Awwww......
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 319th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (31 March – 6 April, 2013), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. ...
It was announced this week that cyber SpAD Rohan Silva would be departing 10 Downing Street for the more lucrative pastures of the private sector. While there is no doubt that Silva has been influential on the digital agenda in the UK, to read some of the coverage you might think that there ...
medicalschool: A scanning electron microscope image of a single neutrophil (yellow), engulfing anthrax bacteria (orange)
In the dying days of the last Labour government, a 50p income tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 was brought in. There's been lots of angst over the subsequent reduction to 45p, but rather less attention has been paid to another change made in the same budget. That change was the withdrawal of the personal allowance at a rate of £1 for every £2 of income over £100,000. This change to the tax system remains in place today, which means that for the tax year just started it has the effect of imposing a 60% marginal tax rate ...
From the Croydon Guardian: Croydon Conservatives have welcomed a Loony to their ranks this week. John Cartwright, known as John Loony, changed his allegiances to the Conservative Party this week after 17 years at the Monster Raving Loony Party. On Tuesday, the Croydon Conservatives tweeted: "It is with great pleasure that we welcome John Loony, latterly of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) to the conservatives in Croydon." Mr Cartwright, who received 110 votes in the recent Croydon North by-election when he stood for the Monster Raving Loony Party, joined the Monster Raving Loony Party in 1996 after a ...
"Last month, I wrote to Nick Clegg ... asking for the Liberal Democrats to stop the government's proposals to curtail benefits for immigrants. Not only did I not receive a reply, but I witnessed the Liberal Democrats' leader espouse the same xenophobic rhetoric." Blunt & Disorderly on leaving the party. Les Bonner reports Catherine Bearder's demand for a ban on pesticides that can harm bees. Politics in Tower Hamlets is no cleaner than ever it was, according to Left Futures. The History of Emotions Blog on five years of the NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme. "While it struggles ...
The first two weeks of election campaigning have gone pretty well, with a good reception generally from voters on the doorstep. It's been perishingly cold, but somehow both I and my fellow canvassers have managed to stay well! With the weather having turned slightly milder over the weekend, let's hope the trend continues ... We're finding that voters mostly want to talk about local issues rather than national politics.They know how hard the Lib Dem Focus Team works round here, and our regular Focus newsletters throughout the year are generally much appreciated as an informative source of local news. Literature ...
[IMG: image] Clearing out the loft I've just come across my old collection of Private Eyes, from back in the day when I subscribed. (I'm more of an Economist guy these days.) This was the one lying on top, referencing Gordon Brown's attack on the supposed elitism of Oxford in 2001. As I'd just finished reading Hopi Sen's reminiscences on this very subject – How Politics Works (and doesn't) – I thought I'd share... Send to Kindle
Sun 7th
16:57
Dear David Philips, Really - how hard is it to clear up your dumped estate agents boards?
Dear David Philips, Alas, my message to you a week ago has resulted in no reply. No response to my email (not even a 'thank you' for pointing out the broken contact form on your website) and not even the dumped boards I photographed and sent you all being sorted. What's worse, another one has appeared near-by, this time at the junction of Holly Park and Crouch Hill (the northern one of the two junctions): [IMG: David Philips estate agent board, Crouch Hill] Ignoring phone calls. Failing to reply to emails. Leaving your property dumped around the area. Come on, ...
David Cameron won't like it. The Daily Express won't like it. But their favourite scare story will be a non-event. It turns out that there will probably not be hordes of Bulgarians and Romanians descending on Britain on 1st January 2014 (when restrictions on the free movement of workers from Bulgaria and Romania will be entirely lifted across the European Union). EurActiv reports: A Foreign Office-commissioned report has directly challenged claims by UK Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain faces a massive wave of immigration from Bulgaria and Romania when labour restrictions applying to these countries are lifted next January.The ...
Sun 7th
16:00
Greg Mulholland to propose "complete separation of state marriage and religious weddings"
[IMG: Greg Mulholland] Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland was one of seven Lib Dem MPs to abstain from the vote on same-sex marriage in February. He explained his reasons for doing so here: I do agree unequivocally that all adults must be treated equally in terms of legal recognition of their relationship and the rights that they convey; the question is how best to deliver that at the same time as protecting freedom of conscience. These are two important rights and must both be delivered simultaneously. The problem is that as currently drafted, the Marriage Bill delivers neither of these. ...
I've banged on about drugs policy enough times on this blog for most readers to know my view. But just in case you're new in summary our drugs laws are stupid. Very stupid. They do not take into account the evidence correctly and front line politicians, especially in the Home Office have time and again shown themselves to be wilfully blind to the harms their laws are causing. Whenever challenged they consistently come out with a statement which is some variation on "drugs are harmful which is why they are illegal" completely failing to engage with the debate and missing ...
It can get lively in this town some nights and alcohol fuelled disturbances are far from uncommon. One in ten reported crimes is violent and nearly half antisocial behaviour. There has been some success on reducing crime in the town. Reported crime has fallen by 10% over the last two years. In 2012, there were ...
I spent Easter weekend in Oslo, the capital of Norway. Norway is an interesting country – tiny in population terms, but very wealthy due to its oil production. It is also not a member of the European Union, though it ... Continue reading →
A couple of years back, I was one of the speakers selecting a forgotten liberal hero for an event at the National Liberal Club. The person I've picked is still mostly forgotten, still a liberal and still rather heroic (perhaps all the more so given our most recent experience of being in power). So I've taken the recording kindly edited at the time by Alex Foster and made it more conveniently available via YouTube:
Photo with the Harlequins mascots! BEST THING EVAR. Nothing profound to say, but I did want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who send hugs and happy thoughts after yesterday's post. :-) I also wanted to say that the time change makes it really awkward to watch rugby! My beloved Harlequins are in the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup (the best European club teams - it's the rugby equivalent of the soccer/football Champions League), which is a VERY BIG DEAL. But, a 2pm game starts at 6am my time! I think I'll be going back for a ...
Sarah Teather isn't the only MP attacking George Osborne today. Ed Miliband's policy chief Jon Cruddas has strong words for the Chancellor in the Sunday People, accusing him of "cruelty" and of "giving a tax cut to millionaires" by dropping the top-rate of tax from 50% to 45% for those earning more than £150,000. So what, you might ask, was Jon Cruddas arguing for when Labour was in power? A top-rate tax level of 45% levied on those earning more than £175,000, as it happens: [IMG: cruddas 45p tax] He's welcome to change his mind, of course. But he should ...
Saturday: I miss "Episode Three"s. In many ways this was exactly the sort of thing that the Doctor should be doing: travelling to exotic places to see astounding events. And this was visually stunning, a triumph for the visual and physical effects people: from the first reveal of Akhaten to that really terrific "alien bazaar", from the golden pyramid to the giant space pumpkin, it delivered on Clara's request for something awesome. For thirty/thirty-five minutes the episode builds, mood darkening and tension growing, as events spiral out of control. And then, as happened last week, it falls off a cliff, ...
About 100 years ago the Birkdale and County Liberal Club held their annual picnic. In 1913 they visited Childwall Abbey. Undoubtedly the most significant figure in the photo is Charles Brumm -Birkdale's own 'CB'. He is fourth from the left. Brumm was German by birth and had become a naturalised UK citizen in the 1870's . He was President of Birkdale Liberals and held in very high regard as the last verse of this Election song shows: A year later with WW1 looming the annual picnic took them the Rufford-Hesketh Arms. In the picture of that event Charles Brumm is ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Twitter / DPJHodges: @JeremyCliffe Let's see how ... Worth reading (en)trail of this Twitter debate betwn Tgrph's @DPJHodges & Econ's @JeremyCliffe on Lab welfare reforms http://bit.ly/10HcwUP Grubby Osborne's crude opportunism is capitalising on fear – Comment – Voices – The Independent Teather attacks all parties for assaults on poor/immigrants > Grubby Osborne's crude opportunism capitalising on fear http://ind.pn/10GZoPo The richer you are, the more likely you are to think you can live on £53 a week | Mark Pack Interesting poll! > "The richer you are, the more likely you are to ...
The best viewing of the week was Cracked Actor, the BBC documentary on David Bowie filmed in 1974. You have until Thursday evening (11 April) to catch it on BBC iPlayer. Another great documentary from this week (sadly available only until Monday evening) was Nile Rodgers: The Hitmaker, about the co-producer of this classic Bowie track.
[IMG: teather_clegg] Former Lib Dem children's minister Sarah Teather unleashes something of a broadside not just against the Coalition, but against all three political parties for their policies on the poorest in society, both benefit claimants and also immigrants and asylum-seekers: There is nothing like insecurity to bring out the temptation to scapegoat. Instead of offering a bit of statesmanlike leadership, Conservative ministers have engaged repeatedly in crude opportunism, capitalising on fear. And so the battle is drawn: good against evil. Those without benefits against those who claim. Strivers against shirkers. The deserving against the undeserving. Then, just before Easter, ...
Sun 7th
12:26
A new blogger in the village... yes, @BaronessRos is back. But not in the way you'd expect...
I have occasionally mentioned to Ros that it would be nice if she were to start blogging again, if necessary under rather controlled circumstances. But it hasn't worked. She doesn't like the aggressive tone of some of those who comment on political blogs, she doesn't always think that what she's doing in Parliament is that interesting. And so, I haven't succeeded in persuading her to dip her toe back into the water. And now, all of a sudden, she is back. There is a twist though, in that she isn't blogging about politics, nor does she intend to. Her new ...
Imagine my surprise last night, when I was leafing through the Evening Standard on the train home, and discovered that Greg Mulholland (Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West) is taking the first steps to disestablishing theChurch of England. Er.... Are you sure Chris? Afraid so. If you don't believe me the whole article was reproduced in the Huffingdon post. To go into greater detail it isn't as bad as it sounds. One of the most divisive parts of the introduction of Gay marriage has been the fact that basically the state is perceived as ordering Religious leaders to make ...
Sun 7th
11:15LibLink: Danny Alexander - The rich are paying more in tax under the Coalition, than under Labour
Over at the Telegraph, Danny Alexander follows up his piece in last week's Sun on Sunday defending the Coalition's benefits and tax changes — Bedroom blockers and tax dodgers will pay — but this time in less tabloid terms: ... cleaning up the mess left by Labour involves difficult decisions everyday that impact on people's lives up and down the country. Few more so than some of the changes to our tax and welfare system that have come in this week. The welfare changes this week are difficult, but right and necessary to ensure that people are always better off ...
Well, that's a question that Luton Borough Council are happy to answer "No" to.
The Fantasy "The honest truth is I don't need any lessons from these people. I have worked hard all my life for what I've achieved and nobody has given me a damn penny. My earnings are what I live on." Daily Mail, 3 April 2013 The Reality The cabinet minister lives rent-free in the mansion at Swanbourne after he was allowed to move in by the previous owner, his father-in-law Baron Cottesloe. Metro, 7 April 2013
We finally get an episode set in space with lots of space aliens and a fully realised alien culture that's alien with different alien languages and alien currency and alien everything and you're bitching because it had SINGING in it? Come ON. I thought that episode was really good - not flawless, there were some pacing issues, for example, but really good - and it did some interesting things with Clara. Why does the tardis translation circuit not work for Clara? Why did her mum die (we know the date was the same day as Rose saved London from the ...
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the longest running science fiction show in the world I am taking a weekly look at some of my favourite Dr Who episodes focusing on one Doctor a month. This month it's the fourth Doctors turn. Today we move onto the fourth Doctor. For many people Tom Baker is the image they conjure up in their minds when you mention Dr. Who. I will get into to much trouble from fan boys if I write his is the definitive performance, but Baker's screen presence, strong motifs and fantabulous stories makes it is fair to ...
I'm not saying I'm an oil expert, although I do have a degree in Economics that can help me understand both the macroeconomic and microeconomic consequences of actions. But Ian Taylor is a man who understands the oil industry. He is Chief Executive of oil and gas trader Vitol Plc. One of the things we hear about from the Nationalissts is that post-independence the oil revenue will allow an independent Scotland to build up an oil fund like the one that Norway has been stockpiling for the last 30 plus years. Indeed Norway is often used as an example by ...
On the Marr show today the question was put to Harriet Harman that 67% of people say the Welfare system isn't working and by way of response she launched into unemployed and people not having a work programme to go on. "You don't have a work programme, so that if people are offered a job and they don't take it, their benefits can be cut." And yet unemployed is just a fraction of the welfare state. Says it all for me; she doesn't want to talk about other welfare issues. Why didn't she just say, that at the time Britain ...
If you still need a reason to loathe the Daily Mail... read this post. And then STOP LINKING TO THEM. (tags: ) Lads: Banter Rights (tags: ) Oops! Homebase let cat out of the bag about using workfare to reduce wage bills | Pride's Purge (tags: ) That obscure object of welfare reform | l'Art Social Actual FACTS on welfare spending. Expect this sort of thing to be roundly ignored. (tags: ) Mrs Justice Thirlwall: The one woman Philpott couldn't defeat - Comment - Voices - The Independent "The odds were against Philpott meeting a female judge this week - ...
[IMG: Bank notes] The whole 'could you live on £53 a week?' question is rather a daft one to get exercised about, regardless of what your political views are because (a) the person who raised the question it turned out themselves has rather more than £53 a week to live on, so why pick that number?, and (b) the question isn't whether you can live on a small sum of money as a one-off, it's whether you can afford to live on it over a longer period of time as you run into extra costs like clothes that need replacing ...
It is a bit late for a smoking gun regarding Iraq but nevertheless those of us who opposed the war on the grounds that it was ill-founded and illegal will feel vindicated by the revelations in today's Independent that the Chilcott Inquiry has found that the former Prime Minister ignored intelligence reports that Libya was a much greater threat so as to do the bidding of the USA. The paper says that hitherto unseen evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by British intelligence has revealed that Blair was told that Iraq had, at most, only a trivial amount of weapons ...
Nick Clegg's latest letter looks ahead to the local elections in England, with a particular focus on the Lib Dems' successful delivery of £600 in tax-cuts for the low-paid compared to Labour's time in power. Here are three quick, clickable ways of promoting this achievement: Sharing the news on Facebook; Watching and sharing this YouTube video; Re-tweeting Nick Clegg's message: Today @libdems have delivered on our manifesto commitment to give people a £700 Income Tax cut #Budget twitter.com/nick_clegg/sta... — Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) March 20, 2013 Here's Nick's letter... [IMG: libdem letter from nick clegg] It's now less than a month ...
[IMG: OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA] Like Iain, we're on the move. After almost 18 years in the city of dreaming spires — half my life — I'm moving to Horsham, swapping the 'shire of Oxford for the 'sex of West Sus. This is the view we're leaving behind... We first saw the house two months ago: it was number 6 on a list of 8 we saw that day (on foot: we were completely knackered by the end). We spent about 20 minutes there, haven't been back since. I've spent longer buying a pair of shoes. Hopefully as and when the ...
It was Hilary Clinton who first coined the phrase 'the politics of meaning'. I wrote about that in the collection of essays called Reinventing the State, which had rather a good picture of Chris Huhne on the front, and argued that Liberals should avoid positioning themselves as a wholly secular philosophy. I must admit that the essay had nothing whatever to do with reinventing the state, so the editors were very generous in overlooking this and publishing it anyway. What I wanted to say was that, although many people who are attracted to Liberal politics are not religious, many are ...
"Britain has maxed out its credit card. The level of debt is too high, and the cost of servicing that debt risks bankrupting the UK. We're in real danger of heading the same way as Greece." Really? The 'maxed-out credit card' metaphor is actually complete bollocks, and nef (the new economics foundation) has just published a handy mythbuster to expose this metaphor as both false and damaging.
This should be compulsory reading for every politician, company director and overpaid banker. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/uk-edition
Out yesterday canvassing, delivering campaign newspapers, and talking to residents in Recreation Road, Acre Path, Batchelors Barn Road, Colenzo Drive and Seville Crescent. Thank you for the positive response I received from everyone and apologies to those I missed. I'll try and get back to see you later. All the comments I received will be passed on to councillors and council officers for them to follow up. Len
Update from the Bridge Manager, Tay Road Bridge Joint Board : Below is the monthly update on the Dundee City Waterfront Development works and how this has impacted on traffic on the bridge. Contract 3 - Sir Robert McAlpine (SRM) - Progress March 2013 There have been minor delays for north bound traffic leaving the bridge during off peak periods due to lane restrictions on the new North Boulevard section. Other than this there have been no issues affecting traffic accessing and exiting the bridge. The current traffic management will be in place until mid May 2013 to allow the ...
The children's clothes recycling scheme is a Community Payback initiative involving the collection, cleaning and distribution of donated children's clothes and is helping families in Dundee. The scheme involves asking members of the public to donate good quality children's clothes which are not being used or which their own children have grown out of. Clothes handed into the Criminal Justice Social Work office at Friarfield House in Barrack Street are washed, packaged and distributed to families who need particular types of clothes for young children. Social workers identify children who need this additional support and persons undertaking work as part ...
The new tax year has just started and that means Liberal Democrat tax reforms are coming into effect. From now on, more of the money people earn will go into their pockets and less will go to the taxman. That's because we've raised the point at which you start paying income tax. Over 20 million people will now pay £600 less than they did under Labour. In households where two people are working, that's an extra £1200 a year. £1200 to cover energy bills, or mortgage repayments, or to go towards a family holiday. And next April it'll go up ...
