Stopped off at New Malden on the way home this evening to do a spot of canvassing in the Beverley by-election. At the station South West Trains are finally doing some improvement works and have stripped off decades worth of advertising posters to reveal these rather tattered BR Southern Region posters from 1969: Close up of right hand poster: Close up of left hand poster:
The Green Building Council's proposes that owners of more energy efficient homes should pay less council tax and stamp- duty, as a way of getting the Green Deal to work. I'm very surprised that this proposal is being supported by the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group. The reason the Green Deal is failing is as plain as [...]
Thank you to all those who made it to my session this afternoon at Ways With Words in Dartington Hall, which was magical in a whole range of ways. The dreamy sunshine on the lawn, the otherworldly atmosphere of Dartington - heavens, I even slept in a medieval bed. It was almost News from Nowhere in reverse. My session on the middle classes was great fun and lively and I'm ever so grateful to everyone for coming. I will be doing a rather different version of the middle class performance at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August. But it was ...
Blood & Treasure says Andy Murray does not come from Scotland or Britain: "Like every other modern tennis player his nation is the court, the training camp, the hotel room and the airlines that link them. One thing that struck me about today's classic Murray mumble is that he sounded more or less identical to the man he beat, Djokovic." Edward Snowden wants asylum in Venezuela, but Venezuela is a surveillance state, argues Isabel Lara on Boing Boing. "Children and adults need nature, yet our technology shapes and defines us more and more. We are products of nature becoming confined ...
Please note that this blog post refers to an item of Parish Council business and, accordingly, I must note that the views and comments that follow have been made entirely in a personal capacity, and do not, and should not be deemed to, represent the official view of Creeting St Peter Parish Council or its Officers. I've had a little more than a glancing view of the document now so, what do I think? Well, we now have 'approved social media' the official council website, Facebook page and Twitter feed, none of which I have operating access to anyway, so ...
The values of peace, empathy and charity are an essential part of this holy month of Ramadan and evident within the invaluable contribution of British Muslims to strengthen communities across the UK. So said Nick Clegg in his video to mark the start of Ramadan, also available on You Tube here.
Darren Woodiwiss outlines the ambitious plans of Transition Town Market Harborough. What is 'Transition'? According to the Oxford dictionary it is 'The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another'. Well to define what a Transition initiative is, such as Transition Town Market Harborough, we need to understand where we as communities are and where we would dream of getting to. The Transition Network was established in Totnes in 2006 by a small group of people one of whom was Rob Hopkins who previously had been a lecturer in Kinsale, Ireland, in the design practice ...
If you believed what some in the trade unions and the Labour party claim, there is an army of "working class" people with a uniform outlook on life, all wanting "working class" MPs representing them in Parliament. But just who are these "working class" people? Judging by what some in the Labour movement suggest, such a clearly defined class exists almost to the point of having its own
Last Friday a new charity, providing online counselling to teenagers with mental health issues, launched in London. Mindfull, run by the team behind BeatBullying, built the service after feedback young people themselves. We're talking about a third of our young people either self-harming or contemplating suicide because they are feeling so bad. The case stories in the report give some idea of how that feels: Jessica was 14 when she started to feel very down. She didn't tell anyone about the way she was feeling until she was 15, and even though she started to have suicidal thoughts it took ...
One of the other hats I wear (and literally I do wear a hat, or at least a hood and net) is that of beekeeper. I first started keeping bees two years ago as part of my drive towards self-sufficiency. With my partner David we are the volunteer beekeepers at Bill Quay Community Farm, a role we picked up more by accident than by design. David and I started with three hives in 2011. At the start of
Hitler had just occupied the Rhineland, the Brits were blissfully unaware of the affair of the new King. Edward VIII, with Wallis Simpson and Americans were gearing up to re-elect Franklin Roosevelt as President. That was the summer of 1936 but that year is so far back in time that most of us were born well after it. So well done to Andy Murray, the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred
Collin Brewer has announced his intention of resigning from Cornwall Council. His move came after the council's monitoring officer produced a report censuring him for outrageous and grossly insensitive comments about children with disabilities. The story of Collin Brewer's remarks has been a long and tortuous one. Two years ago he made comments to a representative of Disability Cornwall saying that 'disabled children should be put down'. After a long standards board process, Cllr Brewer resigned. He then stood for re-election in this May's contests and was re-elected by two votes. At that stage we thought that was the end ...
I've reported before the investigations into election fraud in Derby. Three people have now admitted taking part in fraud: Nasreen Akhtar, who was a polling station clerk at the Madeley Centre Polling Station, in Arboretum Ward, yesterday admitted helping her nieces, Tameena Ali and Samra Ali, to cast fraudulent votes by pretending to be someone else. Tameena Ali cast her vote for the Labour candidate, Gulfraz Nawaz, in the name of Noshiela Maqsood, who is no relation, whereas Samra Ali left before marking the ballot paper.
New from the Deputy Prime Minister's office: Also on YouTube.
The Federal Conference Committee this week selected for debate this autumn a motion on Strengthening the UK Economy ghost written for the leader by his special advisers. It calls on the Coalition to do seven things. The first six are laudable but the seventh: "(to) monitor closely the progress of the Bank of England against its refocused mandate in order to ensure that monetary policy is focussed on aiding growth" is a missed opportunity. This is a time when Liberal Democrats could and should express an alternative to the Conservative/Treasury policy referred to above which Osborne announced in the Budget. ...
David Lidington, the (Conservative) Minister of State at the Foreign Office with special responsibility for Europe has lasted much longer in the post than most of his Labour and Tory predecessors, which has given a welcome degree of continuity at the countless ministerial meetings of the now 28 member states of the European Union. Moreover, [...]
Big Journalism has attacked into the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, criticising his activism and claiming that he has not been transparent with his motive for breaking the NSA story. In his piece Stranahan claims that Greenwald is playing a "distract and confuse" game", and "is attempting to manipulate people into believing something that's not true by dropping accusations and ...
Mon 8th
15:00
Baroness Liz Barker writes: Liberal Democrat peers will support equality as Same Sex Marriage Bill r...
The Same Sex Marriage Bill is back in the Lords today for Report Stage. The Government has responded positively to a number of issues raised during Committee Stage, such as the need to review legislation which prohibits Humanist marriages in England and Wales. The opposition have tabled amendments on all the issues which they had already raised at Committee Stage. You can follow them on Twitter today under the hashtag #hearditallbeforeDear (Lord Dear was, of course, the crossbench peer who attempted to wreck the legislation from the off). First up is an attempt to create two definitions of marriage - ...
Woodlands School, Gillingham As I write this it occurs to me that there may be more to this story than meets the eye. Unfortunately I am not in the possession of all the facts but welcome any illuminating info from the other side. Until then I can only go on the information I have gained. A few months ago the Head teacher of Woodlands Road School called a meeting of parents who attend the nursery to inform us what is going on and how Council cuts will affect the children and fees. Unfortunately I was unable to attend. My wife, ...
Mon 8th
14:29It was all about Andy - and tedious independence referendum bickering was not going to ruin the occa...
Yesterday was one of the hottest days of the year – yet millions of us, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland were inside watching the tennis, willing Andy Murray to come through and claim the Wimbledon title. Even before the match started, though, there was the usual tiresome bickering on Twitter about whether he was Scottish or British. For once I agreed with Scottish Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon when she said: To those trying to politicise this...please stop it. I don't care if he's Scots, Brit or European right now. As long as he wins #comeonandy — Nicola Sturgeon ...
[IMG: IMG_0007] Stick it in the freezer. Five minutes usually does the trick beautifully. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Can you name the four places that have the right to print and use Euro banknotes, despite not being in the European Union? Watch this fun film to find out: Also on YouTube here.
A former Herts County Council social worker has pleaded guilty to seven counts of theft from vulnerable people she was the Careworker for. She now awaits sentencing. Lorraine Graves, the former social worker, pleaded guilty on July 3rd. This has finally allowed her victims and their families and friends to see justice done, two years after the crimes came to light. Liberal Democrat Group Leader, County Councillor Stephen Giles-Medhurst commented, "It has become clear that this woman defrauded vulnerable people of thousands of pounds from their Council-run banks accounts. It is totally unacceptable that a Council worker was able to ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Tories prepare for battle against Lib Dem plans for mansion tax – UK Politics – UK – The Independent Tories target vital voter demographic they've been missing: people living in houses worth more than £2m http://ind.pn/1d9pCOP Shirley seeks to amend same-sex marriage bill: "Equality is not the same as sameness" I've annoyed Lord (Tony) Greaves. "Once again", apparently. Gutted, obvs. http://bit.ly/12lAFhH Twitter / stephentall: Genuinely shocked at The Times's ... Oddly, of all the people who've taken me to task for this tweet re Times' Wimbledon sexism not one has been a ...
Paul Burstow has written an article for PoliticsHome to coincide with the National Health Service's 65th birthday. He looks at the Care Bill currently making its way through parliament and says demographic change means further radical reforms are needed: The goal must be to make co-ordinated care the default rather than the exception. The best results for the individual and for the taxpayer come when care is co-ordinated around them and their family, when the home is the hub of care. The new Boards are well placed to commission this person centred care. A person born in the NHS' founding ...
As we know, 2010 was the first time a coalition cabinet had been formed in Westminster since 1945. This obviously marked an historic occasion. However, coalition is something that is far less unusual in the Welsh political system and I believe experiences taken from Wales can be of benefit to the party as we approach the next General Election. Between 2000-03 the Welsh Liberal Democrats were in a coalition government and our achievements during those three years were substantial. In fact, much to Labour's annoyance, in 2002 we were able to claim that over a hundred Lib Dem policies had ...
In the first of a series on the precautionary principle, Andy Stirling argues it offers crucial time to think through options Precaution is arguably one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented issues in the global politics of science and technology. Misunderstood, because precaution is so often wrongly asserted to be unscientific or anti-technology. Misrepresented, because a large part of the resulting stigma can be a systematic - even deliberate - effect of power. Powerful interests behind a particular innovation can understandably get pretty exercised when challenged by precautionary concerns over their favoured new technology. But these highly partisan commotions need ...
Prestwich's very own community bakery – 'Prest Bake' is having fortnightly bakes from July. Bread will be available to collect from the Aumbry restaurant every other Sunday for a trial period, starting from Sunday 14th July. They are initially going to trial the regular bakes for 3 months whilst they still hunt for premises and save some money to buy much needed equipment. There will be 2 collection time slots: * 10am -11.30am * 11.30am - 1pm They will be baking 72 sourdough loaves and 20 white tin loaves at each bake. * x1 sourdough £2.75 * x1 white tin ...
Mon 8th
12:28
Let's be clear about science education and engagement | Melanie Smallman and Simon Lock
Melanie Smallman and Simon Lock from UCL explain how the Wellcome Trust have misread their own survey In last week's blog piece "The public don't want to be involved in science policy" Hannah Baker used the recent Wellcome Trust Monitor Survey to argue that rather than involving the public in decisions around science, we need to be focusing on educating them. "Although this simple knowledge deficit model [which assumes that increasing knowledge about science will reduce scepticism] has now been largely discredited in the academic sphere, we should perhaps be wary of concluding that ignorance or misunderstanding of key areas ...
A new planning application has been received which is within Holyrood Ward as detailed below:- Application number: 56459 Type of application: Full Date Registered: 25/06/2013 Location: 21 Cuckoo Lane, Whitefield, Manchester, M45 6TE Proposal: Extension to roof and rear dormer Plans will be available to view on the Councils' website here (use the planning application number to search). Any questions or if I can help please just get in touch.
Dates for the next 'municipal' year... all members of the public welcome. [IMG: Screen Shot 2013-07-08 at 12.16.27]
We've all been stuck on hold to some call centre and heard a distant voice say "For your security, and our training purposes, your call may be recorded." I've always wanted to say to people "just so you know, I am also recording this call." Well, now I can. A little back story... Around 4 years ago, I experimented with recording phone calls. It was quite a clunky process, involving conference calling in another line. Of course, Android has theoretically supported native call recording since its inception. However, Google have ignored all the requests to actually enable it. Android has ...
[IMG: Twitter logo] Not only can the volume of tweets be overwhelming, so too can the number of different tools offering to make your use of Twitter easier or more effective. Here then are my ten top tools, all of which are available for free, though some also have paid-for versions that are well worth getting. 1. Hootsuite There are many Twitter clients, but Hootsuite tops the list for non-smartphone use in my book at it makes management of multiple accounts easy – and lets you run more social networks than just Twitter from the one place. A good Twitter ...
Someone unhappy with the decision of Hebden Royd Town Council to ban the local Burlesque festival from using the Picture House as a venue has passed me an email sent to Labour members from Cllr Press the chair of the committee. Hilariously in this email she calls on her 'comrades' to support the ban, whilst admitting both that they didn't even have a booking policy in place, and they need to consider the 'legalities'. She goes onto complain the attacks against the ban have been 'viscous and abusive' and that my equal access motion (which opposes censorship by allowing any ...
On Friday, it was an honour to welcome the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to Highgate Wood – a fantastic school in my constituency. The head teacher Patrick Cozier and I greeted Nick at the gates, and then had a meeting to discuss how the school is using its Pupil Premium money. The Pupil Premium is a Liberal Democrat flagship policy that is being delivered by the Coalition Government. It targets extra money to schools depending on the number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds they have. Schools will receive £900 per eligible pupil. For Highgate Wood, this means a whopping ...
The Tories hate trade unions. In the context of the Social Liberal Forum's conference on 13 July in Manchester, with the theme "Ownership and Democracy - where does power lie?" the Tories' policies regarding the unions have been to try to remove as much power and as many rights from them as possible, in order to free up company bosses to use their power as they see fit without the need to discuss their plans with the workforce. The problem with strengthening corporate power while weakening trade union and individual rights is that it allows a return to working conditions ...
My blood people. My blood. You have endangered that blood by trying to make it boil. All afternoon and evening last night and now this morning. I need a hot tub to relax in (well ok I just want a hot tub and think that this would be the perfect excuse) but what has got my blood boiling you ask? The faux sexism regarding Andy Murray's win at Wimbledon yesterday. You see it has been 77 years since a British man has held aloft the Wimbledon Men's Singles trophy. The thing is though instead of enjoying that triumph people are ...
It is difficult running public sector organisations during austerity. However, Labour's incompetence in running Birmingham seems to exceed their traditional levels of incompetence. The first thing they did on taking control was to change the structure of the cabinet. Rather than having a system where it was clear who was responsible for what issue power was diffused. That means that any
I am very sad to see this article by Richard Grayson on the Compass website: Either way, the sad conclusion I have come to is that I have more faith in Labour and the Greens, than I do in the Liberal Democrats to put forward a package of policies which former Liberal Democrat voters can support. It is very much that - sad - to have reached the conclusions that I have about the Liberal Democrats. I do feel that if people like me who have been involved in the Liberal Democrats at many different levels for 25 years, have ...
The Western Mail reports that a study by two universities and the IPPR has warned that the rise of English national identity is closely tied up with Euroscepticism and is threatening the future of the UK in Europe: Research by Cardiff University together with the think tank IPPR and Edinburgh University found that more than half of English people who identify as "more English than British" say EU membership is a "bad thing" while less than a third of people who feel more British agree. It found that more than four in 10 people (43%) in England now believe Britain's ...
Today's Independent reports that battle lines are being drawn up in the South East of England over Liberal Democrats proposals for a mansion tax. The paper says that the Conservatives are preparing an aggressive counterattack after new Treasury calculations found that wealthy householders would face an average annual demand of more than £35,000: The policy has proved a key point of difference between the Coalition partners, although at one point Mr Osborne was more sympathetic to the idea than David Cameron. Some Lib Dems suggest a mansion tax could be a non-negotiable "red line" in talks with the Tories if ...
Secret badger shoots pose a risk to public safety Peter Black hoists the badger cull by it's own petard. (tags: ) posted On Charles Saachi and Nigella Lawson: TW especially for the final paragraph http://t.co/Q8droYHpdI on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) posted The Blood is The Life 07-07-2013 http://t.co/mDxvqjyR9H on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?short=f4shdB me and my mum and Hol prior to the race. http://t.co/DzWsuxGE4x (tags: (from twitter) ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
So last night I tweeted this: Genuinely shocked at The Times's front page writing Virginia Wade's '77 Wimbledon win out of history. Shoddy http://t.co/j61q6brY2v — Stephen Tall (@stephentall) July 7, 2013 (Others highlighted the various doubles winners down the years, including Andy's brother, Jamie.) Secondly, Mostly Blokes, who reckoned The Times' headline was fair dinkum. "Duh, it's obvious they meant men's tennis. WTF you going on about?" As if it would have killed the headline writer to say 36 years (accurate) instead of 77 (inaccurate). This second response — which I'm going to file under, 'If you don't get why ...
Living by the Leeds Liverpool Canal in Lydiate leads me to take an interest in this great waterway which meanders its way through the Sefton Borough communities of Bootle, Litherland, Netherton, Aintree Village, Melling, Maghull and Lydiate. The Litherland Road canal bridge down in Bootle is a fascinating example of Victorian civic pride with its huge cast metal plaque detailing its building and opening together with a cast representation of the former Bootle-cum-Linacre Corporation's coat of arms. [IMG: rsz_litherland_rd_bridge] [IMG: rsz_litherland_road_plaque] [IMG: rsz_bootle_coat_of_arms] You can imagine what a sight this bridge would have been when it was constructed in 1888 ...
More than you would think, I guess. My long-suffering husband at least went into our union with his eyes open. If there wasn't actually a large bird of liberty in the room at the registry office, he knew that the party would play a large part in our lives together. And even then, I think it's played an even bigger part than he anticipated and he's dealt with it with patience, fortitude and humour. Most of the time, anyway. Why is this even relevant? Well, it's a Summer of 25th anniversaries. Next month, we will have been married for 25 ...
"It beggars belief" has, I'm sure, become overworked among my lexicon of phrases to express exasperation at the imbecilities of our political leaders, but what else is there to say? Here's the latest example. One of the few areas in which Britain retains an international comparative trading advantage is higher education. So instead of capitalising on this our government has made it harder and harder for overseas students to obtain visas, left some of them high and dry without viable courses, and is now talking about demanding bonds of £3 000 in case they make use of our medical or ...
Balgay Park, Entrance Lodge East End.
"Pass the parcel. That's sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys. That's the game I want you to learn. Pass it on."When the lovely actor Richard Griffiths died in March quoted these words from the play The History Boys. They constitute a wonderfully economical defence of learning for its own sake and also, to give it a political slant, of keeping to your principles even when that proves unfashionable or even dangerous. But those words, of course, come ...
