Who said that colouring is just for adults...? This book kept me amused for a good part of the 9 hour aeroplane journey from Chicago O'Hare to London Heathrow. It contains all sorts of "adult-related" pictures to colour, and puzzles to complete. From the "hipster or homeless" pages, to the "escape the toxic relationship" maze, it deals with all sorts of real-life situations. I discovered it in the Wicker Park Urban Outfitters store the morning before the flight, and couldn't wait to have a go at completing the puzzles, and pictures. The authors, Ryan Hunter, and Taige Jensenhave created a ...
[IMG: CambridgeStation] A property development scheme partly using railway land and aimed at providing more than 1,000 student units – the so-called CB1 Development - has generated significant funds to improve Cambridge Station. £4.25 million has been released by Brookgate, the Cambridge based company behind CB1, as part of a land deal with Network Rail and a 3-way agreement between Brookgate, Network Rail and Cambridge City Council. Cambridge Station is managed by train operator Greater Anglia, who will use the funds to upgrade the building to improve concourse and construct a more modern and spacious ticket hall. Greater Anglia is ...
It is a question that comes and goes with various media stories and people have fairly entrenched views on either side of the debate. I am one of those people. I have strong views that due to the fact a not insignificant proportion of society equate an arrest or a charge sheet to guilt. I'll ask these two questions and I want you to think about it and not just read past it. If a friend of yours was charged or even just arrested for burglary would you treat them any different? If so, by how much? If the same ...
Accepting Sexuality, an informal group of Methodists, is holding a seminar on equal marriage, on Wednesday 22 May at 7.30 pm in the Skainos building, 239 Newtownards Road, Belfast. (Sandwich tea beforehand from 6.30 pm.) Legislation is going through the Houses of Parliament, and while it doesn't cover Northern Ireland, it has prompted a debate ...
Sun 5th
20:27
GUEST POST Political defections: Storms of protest or signs of political climate change?
Dr Alun Wyburn-Powell, author of Defectors and the Liberal Party 1910-2010, looks at the history of defections from the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats. Everyone remembers examples of political defections, the most prominent being Winston Churchill's 'ratting' and 're-ratting' between the Conservative Party and the Liberals. But, Churchill was by no means alone; nor was he the most prolific defector. Due to its position on the political spectrum, the Liberal Party has been either the donor or the recipient of most defectors. Well over 100 MPs and former MPs defected to or from the Liberal Party in the century ...
Like several people who have commented on Youtube, I remember liking this song in 1973 and have never heard it since. Being objective, it is not a great record, but it is good to be able to hear it again.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." George Orwell, Animal Farm I've just blogged about this at Liberal Left here
Conservatives With a loss of 335 seats it is probably an odd thing to say that it could have been a lot worse. In government, bang on the mid term with the economy still flat-lining and coming into the elections from a record high in 2009, by rights they should have lost upwards of 500 seats. If the UKIP surge was more focussed then they could have lost a lot more seats and only the vagaries and unfairness of the first past the post system protected them from this surge. How they respond over the next year will define how ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 324th 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 (28 April - 4 May, 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. ...
I hate the iPhone. Always have, probably always will. However, as a geek in the mobile industry, I have to try the full gamut of devices. So, this weekend, for testing purposes, I've been lumbered with an iPhone 4S. My aesthete friends are always complaining about how cobbled together Android is. Because there is no overall owner, the UI is full of unintuitive quirks. That's a fair criticism - some parts of Android are incredibly shonky. But, to hear those in the gilded cage speak, iOS was delivered as the platonic ideal of what smartphone should be. It is perfect, ...
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[IMG: Nigel Evans] Rape anonymity — the right of the accused in rape cases to have their identity kept secret — is in the news again today, after Conservative MP and deputy speaker Nigel Evans was named publicly following his arrest on suspicion of rape and sexual assault. The Coalition Agreement said the Government would 'extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants'. Though the pledge hadn't been included in either party's manifestos, it was Lib Dem policy, agreed at the 2006 party conference. The Lib Dems' then home office minister Lynne Featherstone was in favour of the idea, arguing 'It ...
[IMG: PZukh] On Friday morning Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats were delighted when their colleague Paul Zukhowskyj took a seat from the Conservatives. This was a double triumph since the losing Conservative was no other than the former Executive Member in the administration, Stuart Pile, who had been responsible for Highways and the Environment. This was a great achievement for the Liberal Democrats, but will clearly be an embarrassment for local MP and Conservative Party Chairman, Grant Shapps, who now sees the Tory vote in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency slowly slipping away. Stuart Pile (aka "Mr Pothole") was responsible for the outsourced ...
It has been an awfully long time coming, and a lot of people have put tremendous energy into the project, but the new play equipment for the village has finally started to be put in place. Whilst there are times when being a parish councillor seems to be about minor bureaucracy and generally being ignored by other tiers of government, it is always nice when my colleagues and I can deliver something that enhances village life, and the new play equipment, on the field that the Parish Council now leases on a peppercorn rent, will hopefully give children in our ...
Gosh, I'm getting bored of UKIP already. Nigel Farage's face on the front of all the papers yesterday was quite enough for me. I don't think I'll blog about them again, especially as I got a slightly worrying email after last time which said: "@UKIP is following you on Twitter". So instead I think it is time I blogged about banks. Can I explain for a moment why my heart sank as much as it did when I heard the announcement that RBS had returned to profitability and would be privatised within a year? The giveaway line was from chief ...
What justifies the extravagant hype all over the media about UKIP causing a 'Sea change' in British politics and all the rest of the exposure of Nigel Farage on TV and Conservative panic? So UKIP have a bigger share of the popular vote but under our crazy electoral system that is nothing new. It is 'seats' that matter. Plenty of Tory & Labour Governments have been elected on a minority popular vote. So let's look at some facts: 9836 candidates competed for 2360 seats on 35 English Councils on 2nd May 2013Liberal Democrats fielded 1756 candidates; UKIP fielded 1734Liberal Democrats ...
[IMG: jo swinson by paul walter] In October 2010, I interviewed Jo Swinson for this site and she told me of the work she was doing to help children with allergies who were being bullied at school: Basically, other kids had put the food that they're allergic to in their pockets or bags. Worse, the kids had been held down and had the toxic food pushed towards their face. We all know that children can be cruel and all bullying is bad and needs to be addressed, but the specific issue with this is that while some schools take it ...
Sun 5th
15:35
Switch Island - Thornton Relief Road - MP thinks he had a hand in it getting the green light! NO Bil...
Well I have heard it all now; Bill Esterson thinks he got the road going again when it was looking like it was not going to happen. Where he gets that idea from beats me. The new road has never been in any serious doubt what so ever since the Coalition Government gave it the green light following Labour, when they were in government, giving it no more than an amber light. Indeed, I remember only too well the Transport Minister coming to Switch Island to confirm the Coalition was giving it the go ahead. Mr Esterson was not at ...
Lib Dems learnt the hard way that a surge in votes can bring little dividend at Westminster. UKIP predicted to have zero MPs in 2015.
After all the warm words and soft soap on Lord Heseltine's No Stone Unturned report, in an interview with The Northern Echo, Business Secretary Vince Cable broke ranks this week and poured cold water on any great hopes of any significant new devolution deal. In the Budget in March the Chancellor of the Exchequer offered general approval for Heseltine's plans stating that more details of the government's response, not least the amount of departmental funding that would be channelled into the Single Local Growth Fund, would be announced in June's Spending Review. Heseltine has identified departmental funding pots to the ...
Our national science academy should not be cosying up to the royals - especially one with such a chequered past This should have been a great week for the Royal Society. On Friday, it unveiled the results of this year's election to its fellowship, the most prestigious honour (short of a Nobel Prize) that any scientist can aspire to. After criticism last year over the low number of fellowships awarded to women (just two out of forty-four), the line-up in 2013 was a lot more encouraging, with a record ten women elected fellows or foreign members. As Athene Donald has ...
Watching the media hunt as a pack on the question of "Whither UKIP?" is not my idea of a perfect Sunday morning. Fortunately, most of their attention is on the dilemma facing the Conservative Party. "Move to the right!", "Agree to a referendum on Europe!", "Get rid of the Old Etonians!", the cries are many and slightly silly. For, in truth, UKIP are doing well because they aren't the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Labour, and the public don't like politics. Or, more precisely, politicians. And, in a world of difficult questions, easy answers are seductive. There is a catch, however. ...
There is only one at BTC meeting next week The annual meeting of the council will be on Thursday 9th May at 6:30 at Arms Evertyne House. As this is the first meeting of the council since the election, I expect the usual bun-fight!. I only hope that the Labour councillors can be as gracious in victory as I will be in defeat. The election is over now, let's get on with business.
I have been very busy this last week, not least working on a new campaign to back British publicans and prevent pub closures..... on which more soon. Meanwhile, I checked my inbox and uncovered this discarded draft of Nick Clegg's message to Liberal Democrat members following this Thursday's local election results. It reads rather better than the version finally sent, I think. "Dear Member, First, a massive thank you to everyone who worked so hand in this year's local elections. It has been another tough year for the Party, but we have achieved some remarkable results against the odds; and ...
Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Charles Morgan-Giles (born 19 June 1914) died yesterday. If an earlier post on this blog is correct, that means that John Freeman is now the oldest former MP. He is certainly the last survivor of the House of Commons elected in 1945.
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 fifth Doctors turn. Today we move onto the fifth Doctor. Although I vaguely remember the latter days of Tom Baker, in reality Peter Davision is my first Doctor. So in a sense you can blame him for my obsession. And we will start out with one of the first episodes I can clearly remember. Four to doomsday. The TARDIS materialises on ...
Over at The House Magazine, Mark Pack (formerly of this parish) previews the upcoming Queen's Speech — and applauds the fact that it may be rather thinner than we've grown used to: Far too often ministers have confused volume of legislation sent through Parliament with being a good minister. It is an oh-so-tempting trap to fall into, as shown by some of the daft criticisms of the last Queen's Speech - seeking to equate the Government's seriousness about economic policies with the number of Bills on the subject. Thankfully, however, at least the Liberal Democrat part of the Government is ...
[IMG: decision...] It's been a fascinating and frustrating few days in politics. On Thursday lunchtime I discovered that Claus Offe, one of the world's most famous political sociologists, as giving a lecture entitled Participatory inequality in the austerity state about a hundred metres from my office late on Thursday afternoon. I thought it would be interesting to trundle along. As it turned out "austerity state" made for a good title but was not hugely central to the talk. The talk focused on two well-known problems. First, participation in the institutions of liberal democracy is in decline across the western world. ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe: Also on YouTube.
The media frenzy over UKIP's strong showing in Thursday's county council elections has masked some important truths. Perhaps the most significant of those is that on the basis of Thursday's votes, UKIP would not win a single seat at Westminster. Analysis by Rallings and Thresher, highlighted by Mike Smithson, concludes that the likely make-up of ...
Thursday's local election results may have been difficult for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and a triumph for UKIP (no matter how over-hyped at the time and since) but they were also a disappointment for Labour, who failed to assert themselves as an alternative government and under-performed against expectations. In a way, Ed Miliband was fortunate that the hysteria that has surrounded UKIP's performance has succeeded in masking that of his party. Nevertheless, these findings by YouGov will offer little solace. The polling company report that nearly half of the general public don't know where Ed Miliband stands on ...
My grateful thanks to the 1,120 Kenilworth Abbey voters who supported me in the County Council election on Thursday, enabling me to be re-elected as their county councillor for another four years with a greatly increased majority. The results in full were:- I feel immensely honoured to have received such strong support from so many voters across all parts of the electoral division, and relieved that the goodwill I got from talking with many, many people over the last few weeks actually translated into real votes on the day. Whether or not they voted for me, I will continue to ...
30 Days Of Sexism | Kotaku Australia (tags: ) Mythbusting The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 -Your photos and you This act has been referred to as "the Instagram Act" by various people wanting to stop it. I remain to be convinced that they have understood how it is going to work, and this mythbuster chimes with most of how I understood it. (tags: ) There are girl cooties on my space ship - on women writing hard SF Interesting author experience, here. (tags: ) Mark Thompson: UKIP - The political classes are still not getting it Mark has ...
British History likes to show the Imperial forces and the affiliated Trading companies as a beneficent powerthat made the world better for the new citizens of the crown. There were those who resisted but on the whole a lot of what was done was for their own good. Scratch under the surface and you will find Concentration camps, planned infection of native populations with Small Pox, trickery, deceit and betrayal. No wonder that across the world there was the maxim; Never trust an Englishman Now, Phillip Hammond MP, minister of Defence is reinforcing that credo. Native Afghans who risked their ...
Nick Clegg's message this week is pretty chipper, name-checking some of the 350 Lib Dems (re-)elected to serve their communities this week, many of them in battleground areas. "A year or two ago even if we worked hard we didn't win: now our message is getting a hearing again. We are back in the saddle." His only negative words are reserved for Ukip, who he says offer a "quick fix" which would backfire: "if UKIP ever got to deliver their policies, unemployment would soar, the rich would get a massive tax cut, and we'd face swingeing cuts to our schools ...
Here's what I told The Observer in a necessarily brief piece given their word limit: [IMG: Bristol in the 1950s. Photo courtesy of brizzle born and bred on Flickr. Some rights reserved. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/8542861238/] The anti-establishment rage this time may have been picked up by an anti-European right-wing party, but in other times and in other countries similar protests have taken other political forms. So wise Liberal Democrats will respond to that underlying issue - and the need for a fairer, stronger economy and a more responsive political system - rather than start talking up right wing stances on immigration or ...
This is Gabor Vona, the chairman of the Hungarian party Jobbik, addressing his fellow racists. This weekend hundreds of them protested in Budapest against the city's hosting of the World Jewish Congress. Nor is this a minor party. It is Hungary's third largest with 43 MPs and 3 MEPs. The old Hungarian Liberal party, the Alliance of Free Democrats (Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége) has
'Ubah' is the Malay word for 'change'. Historical elections are taking place in Malaysia today. Never has the opposition, led by Anwar Ibrahim this time, come so close to winning. There are only a few hours left for Malaysians to get out and vote for change. I have a huge interest because my Asian side of the family are Malaysians. I am pictured here with my uncles who are twins. They work as cardiologists in the Midlands. The family met up yesterday to discuss the election which is being held today - 5 May. I am sure my Liberal friends ...
From the City Engineer: "Major roadworks are programmed to commence at the above location week commencing 7 May 2013 and will last approximately 3 days. The Contractor for the works is Tayside Contracts. Access to residential properties and businesses for dropping off passengers or deliveries will be maintained through the works if required. However, delays will be incurred. Therefore we ask that vehicular traffic movements be kept to a minimum, where possible. It would be advantageous in completing the work as soon as possible if vehicles could avoid using Urquhart Street junction and divert their journey via Larch Street or ...
Friends of Magdalen Green is celebrating its Annual General Meeting this Tuesday with a free public lecture with Sandra Thomson, Managing Director of McGregor Balfour Textiles, giving a talk on "My Jute Journey". The event takes place in the Friendship Hall of Dundee West Church, 132 Perth Road at 7pm on Tuesday 7th May - further details available here. In addition, Anna Wowk, Activity Plan consultant will give an overview of the High Mill Project at Verdant Works. All local residents are welcome to attend.
As tomorrow is a public holiday, my usual ward surgeries at the Mitchell Street Centre and at Harris Academy will not take place. I can be contacted on 459378 at any time or by e-mail at surgery@frasermacpherson.org.uk. My Thursday Surgery this week at Blackness Primary School's staff room takes place as normal at 6.15pm.
A massive thank you to everyone who worked hard in this year's local elections. It's been another tough year in our journey from a party of protest to a party of Government, but where it matters most, in our Parliamentary seats, we've stayed strong and even made gains, beating the Conservatives by 5% of the vote. More than 350 of our colleagues won this week, including some wonderful victories from taking three seats off the Conservatives in Wiltshire to holding a local by-election in my own seat of Sheffield Hallam. Every one of those winners will work hard to help ...
During the 2010 General Election, my friend Beth made a very salient point, which I think had been made by a friend of hers before. Election campaigns are the best of times and the worst of times. They have a tendency to bring people together, and unite them for a perfect moment in a common purpose, but they also bring about that stomach churning feeling - that things are changing beyond your control. As a County Council candidate on Thursday, I've felt all of those things. I was selected late last year to be the Liberal Democrats candidate in Frome ...
