If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two disasters just the same... Then you're a Beach Boys fan, since triumph and disaster are so intermingled in this band that it has become impossible to tell them apart. Take this CD as an example. Last year's reunion tour (of a Beach Boys [...]
Former Tory MP Jerry Hayes has written a highly entertaining piece for the Guardian about the Conservative Party's conflicted attitudes towards homosexuality. He notes that history is repeating and quotes some of the vile things said during the decriminalisation debates of the 1950s by three Tory parliamentarians; Lord Winterton, William Shepherd MP and Sir Cyril Osborne MP. Hayes makes this delicious observation: I suspect that nowadays Winterton, Shepherd and Osborne would be welcomed into Ukip, the sort of party one instinctively feels watches Roots backwards so that there is a happy ending.
I have nearly finished honing down my playlist for my Newbury Bayer 10K on Sunday. Strangely enough, the group with the most tracks on the playlist so far is New Musik. Who they? I hear my reader cry. Exactly. A relatively obscure 80s group, but they made some great tunes. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Scarthin Books is one of Britain's great bookshops, but only one of the many reasons for visiting Cromford in Derbyshire.
It looks like terrorism has once again returned to the city of London, this time in Woolwich. Tonight the threat from international terrorism to the UK remains at 'substantial'and MI5 say that the "threat comes principally from Al Qaida and related networks". MI5 explain: The Government continues to maintain a state of heightened readiness in response ...
Great ad from Macmillan: [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
The ruling Bootle Labour cabal at Sefton council are keen to pile on to Southport residents extra taxes. We will soon have the Green Wheelie Bin Tax- a flat tax of £46, then we have the massive hike in car parking charges aimed at bring in £500,000 which will hit Southport's economy hard-85% of all parking charges are paid in Southport. John Pugh and IBB outside the Town Hall So here are a few ways the could save some money. Southport Town Hall has been practically empty for months. I have raised this several times. I am repeated told ...
Bootle Labour Councillor Dowd's legacy of extravagant waste 'the lack of prudence beggars belief'-Liverpool Post No apology, unrepentant and unreconstructed Mark Dowd sits on the Labour front bench at Sefton glowering his defiance. His colleagues protect him and rubbish every report issued that details his outrageous behavior describing them as 'tawdry and rubbish'. How much more is there to come out? When will the Labour party act . To date we know about what the Daily Post calls: ...............'the monstrous black elephant that is Merseytravel's monolithic HQ at Mann Island' which it describes as having 'entered the realms of the ...
At lunchtime I picked up an e-mail from a reporter at Radio 4's World at One looking to call me re a Lib Dem related item on the programme. This piqued my interest but work commitments would have made any contact next to impossible. C'est la Vie... My instinct was that the report would be on activist reaction to the four Lib Dem MPs who voted against the third reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act and the rather high-profile abstentions of Party President Tim Farron and Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Party, Simon Hughes. Just as with Secret ...
Yesterday I posted that I had joined Cornwall Council's cabinet. Now I can say what role I have been given within the organisation. My job title is Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources. Within this role are: Finance (Cornwall Council has a gross budget of more than £1 billion per year)Property (the council owns thousands of properties ranging from public toilets to office blocks)Communications (including the media team, website and social media output)Strategy and Policy (including the Council's business plan)Legal and Democratic ServicesInformation Technology and ERP (ERP is the council's bespoke financial software project)So it looks like I am responsible ...
Entries for Stockport Business Awards 2013 are now open, and we urge you to nominate your business so that we can once again highlight business excellence in the region. We want this year to be a bigger, better event that uncovers yet more fantastic companies doing great work here in Stockport. There are 12 diverse categories, ensuring that there really is something for everyone! The full list is: Business of the Year (£5m+ / £1m-£5m / up to £1m) Most Promising Young Business Business Person of the Year The Award for Innovation and Design The Award for Most Responsible Business ...
[IMG: Cllr John Moore] The Liberal Democrat Group on Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council in Leicestershire is tonight welcoming a new member, Cllr John Moore, who has decided to leave the Conservative Group and join the Liberal Democrats. Group leader Cllr Stuart Bray expressed his pleasure at Cllr Moore's decision: We are delighted to welcome John to the Lib Dem Group. I have worked with him over the past 6 years on Burbage Parish Council and latterly the Borough Council and have always found him a man of great integrity who cares passionately about Burbage and the area as a ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-22608298Liberal Democrat committee member Eluned Parrott accused Welsh Labour ministers of being "far more interested in a having a spat with the UK government than it was in actually helping the people of Wales". She added: "Rather than getting on with the job in hand, the then local government minister chose to enter into a game of tit for tat and point scoring with Westminster. "He continually blamed the UK government for not producing figures he said he needed, but on closer examination we found that not only was this problem not encountered in Scotland and England, but the minister ...
Kent Online wins our Headline of the Day. Thanks to @ColinW on Twitter.
Much attention has been given in the news to Nick Clegg's and David Cameron's remarks on the future of the Coalition. Both were keen to emphasise that the Government would stick together until 2015. I'm never sure it's wise to assert these things so strongly when there was never a realistic prospect of a split anyway. The attempts of some in the Conservative Party to deflect attention from their own torrid internal relations by spreading nonsense about a plot to unseat Nick Clegg, or suggesting his jacket is on a shoogly peg if the European elections don't go well are ...
I have received an e mail from the Open Rights Group regarding the reports that the Metropolitan police were due to buy the data of 27 million mobile phone users along with EE selling data to Ipsos Mori. This is the relevant excerpt of the mail. Contact your mobile provider now to make sure they know their customers are watching them on this issue. Burying things like this away deep in privacy policies isn't good enough. All the mobile providers including EE, O2 and Vodafone have some important questions to answer about what they're doing with their customers' data.Are they ...
John Moore, deputy leader of the Conservative group on Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council in Leicestershire, has left the Conservatives and joined the Liberal Democrats, reports the Hinckley & Bosworth Lib Dems site. In a letter to Conservative officials he said: ""Over the last 12 or more months I have found it increasingly difficult to recognise, on a national basis, the Party I have supported for the last 50 years." Lib Dem Council Leader Stuart Bray says, "We are delighted to welcome John to the Lib Dem Group. I have worked with him over the past 6 years on Burbage ...
Wed 22nd
16:18
Opinion: Referendum debate is a sideshow: the countdown to Britain's real EU vote starts today
In or out? With or without? Will they, won't they? The sound and fury over a referendum on Britain's EU membership has become almost deafening over the past few days. It is a confused debate driven by a small and virulent band of anti-Europeans. Their success lies in a dual strategy of shackling the issue to others of much wider public concern (such as immigration), while simultaneously blackmailing one of Britain's great pro-European parties (the Conservatives) into adopting ever more anti-European positions - against their own traditions, intuition and better judgement. Around Europe, the 'British question' is also furrowing brows ...
Jo Swinson MP has written a short article in PR Week, promising to end the exploitation of interns in public relations. But the problem with interns in the PR industry is less the exploitation of interns than the exploitation of the PR industry. Most PR interns come from wealthy families and are privately educated. Their parents subsidise them by providing housing and income. Anyone without that sort of support would find it difficult to survive unpaid anywhere, let alone in central London where the PR industry is concentrated. This is the main reason why the PR industry (especially the big ...
As a Liberal Democrat I will not deny that it has been an interesting couple of weeks. Who would have thought that it would be my party that showed better than our coalition partners the discipline and unity necessary to govern. For all the speculation the Liberal Democrats stand full square behind Nick Clegg in delivering the party's agenda of lower taxes for the poorest in our society, taxing wealth and excess profits from the banks, better pensions and a greener Britain. The danger is that the Tory Party's disunity and infighting will undermine the consensus we have helped to ...
Addemdum to yesterday's post: I forgot some: Green Arrow grab bag – pre52 and nu52. Demon Knights – entire nu52 run. if Batwoman is one of the best nu52 titles, this one, created by Paul Cornell, is another one. A sword and sorcery team book, featuring Vandal Savage (as played by BRIAN BLESSED), Etrigan the Demon, Madam Xanadu, and a host of new characters, including the Horsewoman, Shining Knight (reinvented as a trans man) and Al Jabr. I highly recommend this series! Marvel Time! (If you were waiting for my Fraction/DeConnick stuff: sorry that's going somewhere already.) Daredevil – volume ...
Lib Dem MPs that voted against equal marriage: Alan Beith (Berwick-Upon-Tweed) Gordon Birtwhistle (Burnely) John Pugh (Southport) Sarah Teather (Brent Central) In total 47 Lib Dems MPs plus one Lib Dem teller (Sir Bob Russell,) were present yesterday, meaning nine of the party's MPs were absent and so abstained. They were: Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) Tim ...
The right of the Conservative party, who have protested so destructively over gay marriage, might do well to remind themselves that their party itself is a marriage and marriages sometimes split up. The damage that has been done to the Tories' standing in the country over this issue can be seen in the latest Survation poll that has UKIP on 22% of the vote. This is only two per cent behind the Conservatives and if repeated at the next general election would result in a loss of around a hundred Tory seats. UKIP would be unlikely to elect more than ...
We are right in the middle of the 13th annual Chorlton Arts Festival (CAF). The complete guide for the festival is here . The festival is a showcase for local and [...]
From The Telegraph "The point was tellingly made at the height of the credit bubble by Chuck Prince, back then chief executive of Citigroup, when he remarked that "when the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing."Prince was soon to pay with his job for still being on the dancefloor when the musicians packed up their bags and left. Though it was obvious that the party was wildly out of control, he still couldn't help himself."
I spent Monday at home and yesterday in parliament, listening to the Same Sex Marriage debate. It was at times infuriating, moving and challenging. There is no doubt that this is an issue that divides opinion, often, but not always, along religious lines. To be honest it highlights, maybe like no other issue, the need to disestablish the church. My view is that the most sensible way to have resolved the differences of opinion would have been to accept the amendments proposed by Greg Mulholland and Simon Hughes making the distinction between religious and civil marriage clear. It would have ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Nick Clegg the only leader to engage with the public | Nick Ferrari | Columnists | Comment | Daily Express "Nick Clegg the only leader to engage with the public," says @NickFerrariLBC (yes, really) http://bit.ly/14wQI08 Cameron's Today interview and Clegg's speech: Politics live blog | Politics | guardian.co.uk Excellent stuff from @AndrewSparrow > Cameron & Clegg: 8 things we've learned today http://bit.ly/10P7N4A Why it's time to start buying shares again in George Osborne's political stock | Stephen Tall Why it's time to start buying shares again in George Osborne's political stock (me, ...
Wed 22nd
13:27
"1) When asked if they want a referendum on any particular issue, British people will tend to respon...
"1) When asked if they want a referendum on any particular issue, British people will tend to respond in the positive. 2) When voting in that referendum, British people will tend to vote to uphold the status quo." - Oliver's Law of British Referendums. Of course, this could all be proven so very, badly wrong in the not so distant future.
Julian signs the checklist with Francesca Rust Gabbi Foreman Student Union Academic Officer MP Julian Huppert has signed up to be a postgraduate funding champion with students from Cambridge's Anglia Ruskin University. He has given his support to a National Union of Students' checklist which calls on the government to "continue to play a key role in funding postgraduate education and ensure that the sector is not neglected in the allocation of public funds". And he has promised that as a postgraduate champion he will represent the interests of postgraduate students in Cambridge and nationally and raise the issue in ...
A move which will give back the power on transport decisions to the people in the towns and cities affected instead of allowing them to be made centrally at Shire Hall has been welcomed by Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats. They said the decision was good news for the travelling public after the county's Joint Area Traffic Management Committees were reinstated yesterday (Tuesday, May 21) by Cambridgeshire County Council. The committees, which give local councillors the opportunities to discuss and decide on transport issues in their areas, were axed when the Tories ruled Cambridgeshire County Council. But following the recent election when ...
Success. Earlier today the Dept of Education announced that they've agreed we need at least one more primary school and possibly another two. Funding for one new primary school to open September 2014 has been approved – Our campaign for more primary school places to solve the pending places crisis has taken a massive leap forward due to your support and help. Thank you. Background. By 2016 our area will have a shortage of 215-235 primary school reception places. That means we need 2 to 3 new primary schools around the Dulwich, Forest Hill Road, Nunhead areas. The Harris ...
I thought it might be useful to do a quick catch-up on various aspects of the parliamentary debate on same sex marriage which took place on Monday and Tuesday. How did Liberal Democrat MPs vote on the Third Reading? There were no huge surprises – and given that 11 had voted on an amendment, which was defeated, to give registrars an opt out from marrying same sex couples on religious grounds, the fact that only 4 actually voted against the Third Reading was better than some had expected. Simon Hughes and Tim Farron were two high profile abstainers. They clearly ...
The reason Europe's economy isn't recovering is a dogged insistence on austerity. That is the conclusion of John Cassidy, writing in the New Yorker: The big mystery isn't why austerity has failed to work as advertised: anybody familiar with the concept of "aggregate demand" could explain that one. It is why an area with a population of more than three hundred million has stuck with a policy prescription that was discredited in the nineteen-twenties and thirties. The stock answer, which is that austerity is necessary to preserve the euro, doesn't hold up. At this stage, austerity is the biggest threat ...
You only have a week left to vote in elections to elect the Liberal Youth Executive for next year. All members of the party under the age of 26, or who are students and those between 26-30 who aren't students but who have opted to stay as members of LY have the chance to vote. You must cast your vote online, or it must have been received by post, by 12 noon on Wednesday 29th May. If you fall into these 3 categories you should have received: a) An email from me telling you about the elections and where you ...
It is a time of great pride on Planet Bureaucrat today, as Ros is debuting in her new role today, that of Chair of the House of Lords EU Sub-Committee D. Responsible for scrutiny of EU proposals on agriculture, fisheries, environment and energy, it seems to me to be particularly appropriate for a Suffolk peer to be involved, and I suspect that Ros will prove to be rather good. There is some travel involved, as Chairs of the various national Scrutiny Committees do meet from time to time, so I can expect to see a little less of her, and ...
On 19th May 2013, a peal of 5040 changes in 2 hours and 54 minutes was made at St Helen's, Parish Church of Sefton. This was to congratulate my ward colleague Councillor Maureen Fearn on being installed as Mayor of Sefton for the third time. The first person to achieve this.
Wed 22nd
11:11
Liberal Democrats continue to push for Greener, Fairer, Stronger Economy for Lancashire
Liberal Democrats are continuing their negotiations with both Labour and the Greens to get a better deal for Lancashire. County Councillor Bill Winlow, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group said today, "We have been in intensive discussions with other parties since the local elections earlier this month. These discussions have been based around a policy document produced by the Liberal Democrats, in which we call for support for the vulnerable, pursuit of shared services with districts and the provision of an infrastructure that will provide for sustainable economic growth for the whole county." LibDems proposed a rainbow alliance in order ...
Wed 22nd
10:28The Independent View: An invitation to ORGCon 2013: the UK's leading digital rights conference
It becomes clearer every year how technology affects our rights and civil liberties in all sorts of ways. Businesses or governments try to block access to more information online. States make ever more demands for powers to surveil their citizens. Some of the laws governing what we can say on the Internet are too strict, with people punished severely for saying something online that would not be an offence if it was said in the local pub. Open Rights Group's national conference 'ORGCon' is the place to learn about, discuss and debate how technology affects our freedoms and democracy in ...
When a football manager loses vital games, no matter how well their team performed, they are Over seeing failure - Cllr Rodney Chambers sacked or have the decency to resign. When a military commander is defeated heavily in battle, no matter what the odds were against them, they are replaced or have the good grace to die in battle. When a minister screws up massively or a Party leader losses an election by a serious amount they are promoted side ways, replaced or resign. Not so for the Medway Conservatives. The ruling Medway Council have been in power for quite ...
Humanist wedding plan fails but may return to gay marriage bill | Gay Star News (tags: ) Open Letter from Jessica O'Driscoll-Breen to David Burrowes, Conservative MP (tags: ) Factcheck: How many women die every year due to domestic violence? | Full Fact (tags: ) @A_C_McGregor @stackee http://t.co/Iok1cVi7jB (tags: (from twitter) ) NOOOOOOO RT @Ceilidhann: RT @nytimes Creator of the GIF: "It is a soft 'G,' pronounced 'jif.' End of story" http://t.co/spkzjEKH2L || NEVER! (tags: (from twitter) ) posted Equal Marriage: Five thank yous. http://t.co/7T1gWe3DIs on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) Labour: not a party ...
It's been brought to my attention that another councillor is castigating me for not attending meetings earlier this week, saying that he's sure people expect their councillors to attend meetings. All I can say is that meetings are only valuable if we learn something or contribute something to them. As a council group leader I attend a lot of briefing sessions with senior officers and pass on
[IMG: Broke] Since I work for myself, I don't often put myself onto London streets before 9am at the earliest - and I am certainly not mad enough to drive. The whole business of driving inside London in the working day reminds me of the mythical frog in the frying pan. I have no idea if frogs will actually fry if the heat increases slowly, but London traffic seems to fit into this metaphor. Wasting time in jams that would be quite unacceptable if we met them for the first time, just gets lazily accepted because they increase slowly. Which ...
2009 I obtained agreement on behalf of Southwark Council from TfL that for the cycle super highway along Southwark Bridge Road (most of its route in Southwark) that it would be 20mph. Putting self enforcing measures along the road would be really expensive and disruptive. Separately I've been nagging Southwark Labour cabinet members about trialling 20mph average speed cameras. I'm chuffed to see both moving forward: 20mph average speed cameras will also have a small £10,000 study about them being applied to Southwark Bridge Road. I submitted details to them about Siemens having a self funding scheme with 3-4 ...
There are loads of really delightful Simplified and Traditional Chinese True Type Fonts available on the web. There's only one issue - the file sizes are really large. In many cases, too large to effectively use as a web-font. For example, this calligraphy style font is 3.4MB. [IMG: Richwin-Xing-kai-jian-Fan-Font-fs8] The beautiful Paper Cut Font weighs in at 14MB! [IMG: Paper Cut Chinese Font-fs8] That file-size is far to heavy to embed on a web page. Subsetting Generally speaking, font files like .ttf contain a representation of every single character. 0-9, a-z, A-z, all the punctuation, non-English characters etc. That's really ...
The BBC reports: Up to 600 Afghan interpreters who worked alongside British troops are to be given the right to live in the UK, government sources have confirmed. The plan marks a climbdown from ministers who had decided they should not get the same UK resettlement rights as interpreters in the Iraq conflict. Afghan interpreters who worked on the front line for a year or more will initially be offered a five-year visa. This is something, as we reported 3 weeks ago, that Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown have been arguing for. Earlier this week, Paddy Ashdown said that it ...
Wed 22nd
06:59
The new bin tax in Sefton - Yes, paying to have a green bin is another form of a Council tax rise bu...
[IMG: epd_wheelie_bins_group] Back to that knotty issue of Sefton Council, under its Labour rulers, wanting to charge us all for having a green recycling bin. The consultation is presently on-going but the result is clearly intended to follow that of Labour run Wirral Council. Apart from the obvious backward step in recycling that this policy change will cause (probably around two thirds of folk will stop using the service) it is also a Council tax rise by the back door. This issue has not really hit the public's radar in Sefton yet but I will be surprised if it does ...
Back in February, along with other committee members of the West End Community and Sports Hub (WECSH, formerly WESHA), we toured the Riverside Pavilion to view the commencement of the improvement works provided by a Community Payback Scheme project. Last night, we held another tour to view progress with the works that are nearing completion and these are looking great. Here's a few photographs from the visit last night: New kitchen equipment installed Repainted changing rooms Repainted corridors - the floor is to be repainted after the football season ends New showers are hugely better than the old ones!
A new peak time bus service, jointly funded by the City Council and Angus Council, and to be operated by National Express Dundee, will start next Monday (27th May) providing direct links between Piperdam, Liff, Ninewells Hospital and the City Centre. The good news for the West End is that parts of the West Endincluding Guthrie Street, Brook Street, Milnbank Road, City Road, Tullideph Road and Ancrum Roadwill be covered by the new route. This is particularly welcome for those residents who used to rely on the former Stagecoach 74 service that was withdrawn back in 2009. The timetable can ...
I work in an open plan office; there are positives and negatives. On the plus side, at least I'm not confined to a cubicle and I can converse with many of my colleagues without leaving my chair. Less happily, when it's a particularly busy day and the phones are going off every few minutes and ...
Wales needs its own a whistleblowing hotline to allow NHS staff to be able to anonymously report their concerns. The Welsh Government Health Minister recently confirmed to me in a Written Question that there is currently "no whistleblowing hotline for NHS staff". Instead, staff are expected to contact a number, run by the Royal Mencap Society, that covers NHS and social care employees in both England and Wales. The Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling on the Welsh Government to introduce a free hotline that is available solely for NHS staff in Wales. It is absolutely critical that staff working within ...
Wed 22nd
01:51
First Capital Connect condemned over plans to chop down trees in the St Albans Conservation area
[IMG: Lib Dem councillors are strongly opposing FCC's plans] Lib Dem councillors are strongly opposing FCC's plans Councillors and residents have been horrified to learn that First Capital Connect intends to fell many of the trees alongside the car park on Ridgmont Road. A letter was dropped to a small number of residents - but by no means all those who would be affected. Councillors were not consulted or informed. Lib Dem District Councillor for St Peter's Ward Michael Green said: "These trees provide essential screening of the train station for nearby residents and add biodiversity to a heavily built ...
Following this afternoon's vote in the debate on the third reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, Christopher Lovell has expressed his disappointment at Tim Farron's "abstention" today. It seems that Mr Lovell who lives in Leeds, not in Tim's constituency, feels that because there is no vote recorded by Tim Farron in today's [...]
We've found a buyer for our house, and now I'm currently simultaneously negotiating to buy a house in the West Country, and looking for somewhere for us to rent in Edmonton for the next year. I prefer the Canadian conveyancing system to Britain's. The main difference is the length of time between an offer being [...]
