Firstly a couple definitions: When I say a set of footwear I am counting pairs of shoes, boots, slippers, galoshes, trainers, etc. but NOT socks. The number of pairs of footwear one needs is clearly smaller than the number which it is nice to have, which is clearly smaller than the number which is over the top. The polloptions reflect this. With that out of the way, on with the vote: View Poll: Footwear [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Liberals applauding a military coup? OK, it happened in Portugal in 1974, but that ousted a dictator, not an elected president. Yet the people with whom most liberals would most readily identify in Egypt seem to be the ones on the streets hailing what in plain English is a military coup. The reasons for this curious turn of events lie in the deep suspicion in which secular Egyptians hold political Islamists. I recall meeting Egyptian liberals at Liberal International congresses. They were members of opposition parties tolerated in the Mubarak era so long as they remained unthreatening to the regime ...
Yesterday evening I attended the Lakey Lane Police Tasking meeting. PCSO's Hayley Tierney and Chelsie Beardmore attended on behalf of our local police team and briefed us on the latest month's crime figures. There were: * 9 burglaries from dwellings in Acocks Green – a fall of 4 on last month * 13 thefts from motor vehicles (many of which were theft of number plates) – 7 down on last month * 6 theft of motor vehicle (all following the theft of the keys) – 4 up on last month * 4 robberies (3 phones and 1 chain) – unchanged ...
Good news from Oxfordshire tonight. Jeanette Halliday gains the Abingdon Fitzharris ward for the Liberal Democrats with a 3.3% swing from the Conservatives. Could this be another example of the Midas touch of Liberal Youth, who spent Sunday campaigning in the ward? Of course the strong Oxwab team and PPC Layla Moran have put many hours of work in to achieve a magnificent result, the 8th gain from the Tories in the past year. Congratulations all round. Update: News of a second victory reaches my ears. Steve Riley won the Aylsham ward of Broadlands District Council from the Conservatives with ...
A late (1993) appearance by the man whose grave I once went on a pilgrimage to photograph.
Operating a spoof Twitter account during BBC Question Time gave Martin Belam a glimpse of the level of misogyny that women in politics face on social media every day. On the Policy Network site, Peter Graefe and Simon J. Kiss look at the revival of the Canadian Liberals under Justin Trudeau. Do Aussies like children more than Brits do? asks Rethinking Childhood. Jade Wright, in the Liverpool Echo, shares some secrets of the city's workhouses. "So I thought I would walk to all London's 'magnificent seven' cemeteries - the grand, doom-laden commercial cemeteries laid out in the late 1830s and ...
The IOC yesterday posted on YouTube the promotional videos for the Candidate Cities for the 2020 Summer Games; Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid. The decision of who will host the XXXII Olympiad will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the decision being made on 7th September So here they are:
There has to be some dark irony in the fact that on the day that Americans celebrate their independence, news was released that cross-party talks to reform our system of party funding had broken down. When I call it a system, I use the term carefully, and in the same way you'd use it to describe the relationship between drug barons and drug dealers or prostitutes and pimps. I flinch after writing that, but in all reality, the cattle market of party funding is little different. Conservative ministers agreed to meet the nice people from Wonga, for a £1250 fee, ...
This years Bar Hill Village Fete will be on the village green this Saturday. It's looking like the weather will be clear this year so we're (the organising committee) hopeful of a fantastic day. The poster for the Fete is to the right (click for a larger version), the day starts at midday with the grand opening followed by the Tesco Fun Run. At 2pm we have the dog show, if you want to register your pet then registration opens at 1pm at the St. Ives Dog Training Club stall. At 3pm the Beer Festival will be kicking off in ...
More4 is planning an evening of programmes next Saturday (13 July) in memory of Professor Mick Aston, who died last week. The evening, says the Channel 4 website, will see a combination of classic Time Team episodes featuring Mick Aston and his former colleagues sharing their memories of him. And the site quotes Tony Robinson: "Mick Aston was a great British eccentric; an atheist whose life's work was medieval monasticism, an anarchist who for many decades loyally fulfilled the labyrinthine requirements of his university and British television, and a grumpy old curmudgeon with the kindest of hearts and a great ...
From the Leicester Mercury earlier this week: A Conservative councillor has been convicted of failing to declare he was working as a bus driver while he was claiming benefits. Councillor Chris Boothby appeared at Leicester Magistrates' Court to plead guilty to two offences, after he was prosecuted by the Department of Work and Pensions. The 47-year-old, from Ratby, is the Conservative member for Ratby, Bagworth and Thornton on Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, but has been suspended from the authority's group since he was charged in October.With thanks to Rutland's own Martin Brookes.
After her excellent performance and decent result as our candidate in the Aberdeen Donside by-election, Christine Jardine has been back writing for the Scotsman. She argues that voters are much more positive about the Liberal Democrats and are starting to respect what we are going in Government. She started off by highlighting a problem that wouldn't be resolved by independence – bias towards the Central Belt: But for me the one disappointment is that so many of the Scottish political establishment still don't understand that politics in Aberdeen is different from the central belt. And it's not just Aberdeen. The ...
At a packed meeting in Ealing last Friday, Councillor Jon Ball, was selected by local party members to fight the Ealing Central and Acton parliamentary constituency for the Liberal Democrats. After his selection, Jon Ball issued a challenge to the incumbent Conservative MP for the seat Angie Bray, saying, "What, if anything, has Angie Bray actually achieved for local residents 3 years in to a 5 year term? She has a busy diary but does not seem to get beyond meetings to delivering results." Jon Ball secured the highest ever Liberal Democrat vote in Ealing in 2010, securing 13,041 votes ...
Today sees the opening of the fourth Manchester International Festival, with events ranging from the staging of Macbeth, featuring Kenneth Branagh as Shakespeare's protagonist to performances by bands such [...]
For over a year, David Laws, Lib Dem chief executive Tim Gordon, Francis Maude, Conservative Party co-chairman Lord Andrew Feldman, ex-cabinet minister John Denham and former Labour Party general secretary and current whip Lord Ray Collins have been engaged in cross-party talks to attempt to secure a deal to reform party funding. Today, Nick Clegg announced in a written ministerial statement (pdf) that those talks have collapsed: Following the publication of the 13th Report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) in November 2011, I convened discussions between the three main political parties to discuss possible reforms to ...
The Sticky Fingers toddlers group will be having sessions especially for parents and toddlers in L19 at Funtown in Garston village every Monday morning. It's 9 30 to 11 and costs £2 50. Good luck to all the mums, dads, helpers and youngsters.
You can read Tom Watson's resignation letter here and make your own mind up; but if you ever doubted the tribal nature of British politics, then have a glance at the Twitter reaction, not to the news of his resignation - but to the views on the style of the letter...
On Monday a group of business leaders from across the country gathered to launch a manifesto for Europe the main thrust of which said that Europe was good for UK businesses. It was a great experience to be with a group of people who were all describing unique personal reasons related to their own companies as to why Britain should remain in the EU. It is often thought that it is just large businesses trading across borders that do well out of EU membership. But at the launch event I met with many small business leaders who have the EU ...
The British are culturally predisposed to root for the underdog. I'd never been a massive fan of MySpace - but after the trials and tribulations it has gone through, I have a soft spot in my heart for it. So, when this email arrived, I couldn't wait to give it a go. [IMG: MySpace Email-fs8] Ok, so the email isn't formatted well for mobile - despite the fact that nearly 50% of all emails are read on the phone. With palpable excitement, I stabbed at the "Learn More" button. I waited with bated breath. Then - I saw the future! ...
I am aware of two meetings at Blyth Town Council next week Grants Committee, 9th July , 6:30 pm at Arms Evertyne House This meeting isn't on the website of the council, but I am assured that it is going ahead Finance Committee , 11th July , 6:30 at Arms Evertyne House
A new scheme was launched in Cambridgeshire Libraries last week to help people suffering from conditions such as depression and anxiety. Reading Well Books on Prescription was launched nationally earlier this month. It's now being rolled out in libraries across the country and will enable GPs and other health professionals to recommend 30 self-help titles available to borrow. Cambridgeshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Education and Learning, Councillor David Harty said "Local health professionals attended a launch in Cambourne last week to learn more about the scheme, which nationally aims to bring healing benefits to six million people with anxiety ...
The latest round of amendments to the Lords report stage of the bill are out, including government amendments which are almost certain to pass. There is nothing on the spousal veto yet which is not a good sign. What has been included is reintroduction of the old Gender Recognition "Fast Track" process. As originally enacted back in 2004, this allowed people who had transitioned for a long time (6 years) an easier route to getting recognition. Rather than needing two reports from doctors, you only need one – either a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or evidence that you've had surgery ...
Here's another of Ros's interventions that I hadn't covered, from 30 April 2012... Ah yes, the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill. Whatever happened to that? Ros, having suffered for months as a member of the Joint Select Committee, was moved to speak when the Motion to Note its report was debated... Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat) My Lords, I speak as a survivor of the Joint Select Committee. In doing so, I offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for his very able chairmanship. I should also like to echo his remarks about the work ...
[IMG: The Spirit of Utopia 1] It wasn't actually Stout Cortes at all, was it. It was Nunez de Balboa who stood, full of wild surmise, and stared at the Pacific. I had one or my own moments silent upon a peak in Darien this week, at a fascinating dinner at the Whitechapel Gallery, to celebrate the launch of their exhibition The Spirit of Utopia, which opened today. I had just been talking at a seminar in the City on the future of money, so it was absolutely obvious to everyone there - as people said - that I was ...
[IMG: Peter Brook] Congratulations to Peter Brook who was the winner of my prize draw for new people signing up to receive Liberal Democrat Newswire. A copy of British Electoral Facts 1832-2012 is in the post to Peter. Happy reading! If you're one of those who missed out, but like the idea of having such an excellent collection of political facts, you can always get the book from Amazon instead.
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... The Labour-Falkirk controversy explained Is Guido now writing for Daily Mash? » The Labour-Falkirk controversy explained http://bit.ly/1aFigFK I apologise for my lack of enthusiasm for HS2. It's been unavoidably delayed owing to the lack of evidence Here's my case against HS2 from 6 MONTHS AGO (#justsaying) http://bit.ly/17VgOyZ Downing Street won't like the changes at the Times The Tory Diary V interesting by @PaulGoodmanCH on The Thunderer's new style » Downing Street won't like the changes at the Times http://bit.ly/17LJvLe There Is No Google Reader Replacement, Only Alternatives | TechCrunch TRUTH » "There ...
Cornwall Council's strategic planning committee today gave the go ahead for the new Morrisons supermarket on Launceston's Link Road. The committee also gave outline consent for a hotel, fast food restaurant, pub and 275 homes. The vote was 20 in favour and just one against. Both I and colleague Jade Farrington spoke to the committee. We both broadly supported the plans but had concerns about the loss of up to seven of the Millennium Avenue of oak trees. We both argued that an alternative entrance would have been better and we regretted that the developers had not been able to ...
It is welcome that Danny Alexander is to publish a paper into the alternatives to a like-for-like replacement for Trident this summer. In doing so, the Liberal Democrats have made a sea-change in the transparency of British nuclear weapons policy, which for more than half-a-century has been veiled in official secrecy and occluded behind impenetrable bromides. But the leaks surrounding the paper suggesting a "Third Way" style compromise on Trident by reducing the number of submarines to two feels hollow. The current four submarine Trident force is the minimum currently required to ensure that one is always at sea on ...
The latest odds from Labrokes put Red Len McCuskey at 200-1 to be next Labour leader. At even shorter odds are union advocate Owen Jones, and HuffPo Political Director, and Ed Miliband supporter, Mehdi Hassan. Why would Len bother running for the leadership, when he control things from his union baron ivory tower?
[IMG: 8753339813_fbf37b9da0_n] The Independent columnist Owen Jones occupies a slightly strange position in the political landscape. He has been ranked in various lists as one of the most influential thinkers on the left. He has a reasonably high profile in the broadcast and print media. He's quite active on social media. Yet his political stance is not one that is leading any debate that I'm aware of. Quite the opposite. The Labour party generally seems to do its utmost to distance itself publicly from the sorts of positions that Jones espouses. That process has gone into overdrive this week in ...
A follow up to my earlier email to The Week magazine: I hope a reply to my earlier email will be on its way shortly. In the meantime, I just observe that another week of the Wit & Wisdom column has passed, and once again it was not just dominated by men, it was overwhelmed by them. Five men, just the one woman – and one anonymous quote which, almost as if someone had decided to make a point, started off talking about a lawyer and then slipped into assuming a lawyer must be a 'he'. Are you really so ...
I just received the following e-mail: Neil — In April the Bank of England announced that they would be removing the last remaining female from English banknotes — the social reformer Elizabeth Fry who appears on the £5 note — meaning that, other than the Queen, there will be no women featuring. Caroline Criado-Perez believes that having an all-male line-up on English banknotes sends out a damaging and untrue message that no woman has done anything important enough to appear. That's why she started a petition calling on the Bank of England to reverse their decision and ensure a female ...
Hong Kong housing officials have been on a fact-finding mission in South Cambridgeshire to see how Council bosses deliver affordable homes for local people. Eight visitors from Hong Kong Housing Authority - who deliver the City's public housing programme - visited three sites in the district to learn from how South Cambridgeshire District Council secure an appropriate level, mix and size of affordable housing to meet the needs of all parts of the community. On the tour the visitors saw different solutions to affordable housing issues from a rural exception site at Hauxton that has provided affordable homes for people ...
"Thankfully, since Blair and Brown are gone the country no longer has to do whatever Peter Mandelson says. And given the fiasco of the Millennium Dome, for which he had personal responsibility, I hardly think he is the best person to offer advice on large projects anyway. "The Liberal Democrats were the first party to champion high speed rail, the Conservatives got on board and it was Labour's Andrew Adonis who got it started. There is a genuine cross-party consensus. "It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs; be a major boost to our economy, especially in the North of ...
Tim Farron: "Christianity is not a bit true. It's either wrong or utterly compellingly true." I know what I believe. I also know what I don't believe. I don't think it's a terribly positive testimony for the President of the Liberal Democrats to chair a prayer breakfast in Westminster Hall at which Oxford University's Professor John Lennox described atheism as a "fairy tale for those afraid of the light". Worse still, when the President of the Liberal Democrats follows that up with the assertion that "Christianity is not a bit true. It's either wrong or utterly compellingly true", questions have ...
I actually got so annoyed over the use of the tax cuts for millionaires being a reason for less money being available for investment that I got off my fat arse on the sofa and plonked my fat arse on my PC chair and wrote a letter to the editor on it. Yes millionaires are getting a tax cut. That it obvious but a tax cut for them doesn't automatically equate to less money being in the public purse. It really bugs me that people can't get their heads around that basic principle of economics. If more people pay less ...
In recent months we have seen some shocking examples of failures of care within the health service. Tragic events such as those which occurred at the Mid-Staffordshire Hospital and the Winterbourne View Hospital have demonstrated a desperate need to ensure that people are held to account when awful things happen across the NHS and care services. It is clear that we need to restore trust in health and care services. When a serious failing occurs it is simply unacceptable for patients and their families to be left in the dark or to feel that those responsible have not had to ...
[IMG: qat] Yesterday we learnt that the Home Secretary has decided to ban the drug 'khat', against the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). The Lib Dems were reportedly against this move, and the decision lay with Theresa May. This and other decisions suggest that drugs minister Jeremy Browne has been given a script but no power. The disappointing decision to make khat a Class C drug follows the view of the ACMD in January that it should remain legal (having said the same thing 7 years earlier): The ACMD considers that the evidence of ...
Poor old #Terminator http://t.co/81BE7YQCnt (tags: (from twitter) terminator ) James Cracknell... sustained a serious brain injury while cycling in 2010. He now hopes to become a Conservative MEP. http://t.co/n0YGbpyAXc (tags: (from twitter) ) posted The Blood is The Life 03-07-2013 http://t.co/Al1FEL8ABb on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) HOT dogs: Veterinarian sits in a hot parked car for 30 minutes to show it affects your pets http://t.co/MhjY61mDG6 via @dangermindsblog (tags: (from twitter) ) The ban on Khat is irrational and preposterous http://t.co/uCoJTzTrBo via @politics_co_uk (tags: (from twitter) ) Example of government "banning" something for ...
A new series of Undercover Boss has started recently. I'd stopped watching it ages ago but thought I'd give the new series a go. It wasn't disappointing in that it was at once utterly predictable, yet still surprising. It was intriguing to follow Phil Couchman, the Chief Executive of DHL in the UK. It's likely the show was deftly edited, and it's difficult to tell how long Phil actually spent at the coalface with his employees, but it was clear that he saw at first hand problems that he may never have considered critical, or perhaps even knew about before. ...
Reports in today's media that wartime diseases are returning to Britain because some children are living on junk food diets that are worse for them than rationing was 70 years ago, are not new but that does make them any less shocking. Wales in particular appears to be suffering badly from this phenomenon, with obesity amongst youngsters at an all-time high. The Telegraph says that cases of scurvy and rickets have been on the rise in parts of the UK where some parents rely on takeaways and microwave meals to feed the family. They add that dietitians in the Rhondda ...
A knock on my door around 6.30pm yesterday told me that there had been a road accident on Southport Road down by the Maghull boundary and that Lydiate's boundary sign had copped for it! [IMG: rsz_lpc_sign_03_07_13] I went to look and whilst one of the poles was mangled the sign was OK. Sefton Security and the Police were there and said that a contractor was coming to take the sign away as it was dangerous. I took an executive decision and unbolted the boundary sign and have it in my back garden because having been through such before in Maghull ...
So reports The Times [£]: [IMG: European flags] Britain would face a huge bill from the EU and may still have to obey many of its rules should voters opt to leave Europe, an independent analysis has warned. In an assessment that will worry MPs hoping to take the UK out of the EU, a review by House of Commons officials concluded that Britain would "almost certainly" have to settle its "financial account" with Europe. The review also concluded that despite EU legislation being one of the main bugbears for voters opposed to Europe, "in practice the UK is likely ...
Thu 4th
06:16
Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, Announces Expansion of the Troubl...
[IMG: danny_alexander_low] On 24 June 2013, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander announced a massive expansion of the Coalition Government's ground-breaking Troubled Families Programme. An additional £200 million is to be invested to extend intensive help to 400,000 high risk families so they can get to grips with their problems before they spiral out of control. The Troubled Families Programme works by assigning a dedicated worker to engage with a whole family on all of its problems, such as ensuring that the children attend school, appointments are met and appropriate services are accessed. Crucially, all of the ...
This photograph shows the upper section of Dundee's Tay Street at the junction with West Port to the left and North Tay Street leading into the distance. David Mackie is listed in the 1892-93 Dundee Directory at No. 2 North Tay Street and No. 1 Westport [sic]. Andrew L. Peacock, the plumber and gasfitter (at No. 67 Tay Street) lived at No. 13 Kinloch Street.
I welcome the coming into force of new EU caps on mobile phone roaming fees this week, which will reduce the cost of data roaming by over a third and further reduce the cost of making calls and sending messages when visiting another EU country. These new rates have come just in time for families heading off on their summer holidays and will help to take the sting out of those shock mobile phone bills. Thanks to the new cap, the cost of data usage, checking your emails, social networks or GPS maps while abroad in another EU country will ...
