Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. 1. Beeston Town CentreAt the Development Control meeting on Wednesday the borough council gave planning permission for a redevelopment of the Beeston Square. Many of the members of the committee expressed disappointment that the plans were not as inspired as we would have hoped but the prevailing view was that we had to give permission to get something done. I was in a minority of one who voted against the proposals as I felt that ...
The Artwoods were a sixties band formed by Arthur Wood, the older brother of Ronnie Wood. "If I Ever Get My Hands on You" appears on their 1966 EP "I Take What I Want" and features keyboard player Jon Lord, later of Deep Purple, prominently.
The Land of the Rising Sun has warned Britain against allowing the sun to set on our relationship with Europe. UKIP will be apoplectic, but any North Easterner with their head screwed on will take note. As a region that is still a net exporter, unlike the much of England, the North East has benefited heavily from Japanese investment in terms of jobs and the development of hi-tech skills. So I can't help thinking that we would be well advised to avoid a defensive emotional response and instead listen to what the Japanese Government has said. After all, it was ...
Martin Brookes alerts us the fact that Rutland County Council is holding a special meeting on 29 July. It is being held to take forward the idea that the council taking legal action against three of its own members. I blogged about this back in January when the idea was first discussed. And a few days later, speaking in the House of Lords, Tom McNally went out of his way to say that the idea of a local authority suing for defamation was a non starter. Looking at the report going to the meeting, it seems the council is trying ...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile, Be yourself no matter what they say For the last couple of hundred years (i.e. the period where identifiably LGBT people have existed) there has been little let up in the persecution of our predecessors. They suffered executions, chemical castrations, electroshock therapy, imprisonment and public shaming. It is with great relief that I can look back on my life and know that the worst that ever happened to me was a few stones thrown at my boyfriend and I when we dared hold hands in public. Our community, however, was forged ...
Over at Politics Home, Helen Goodman MP has outlined a fairly disturbing case which she says highlights the inadequacy of the UK's data protectoin laws: On 12 May, The Sunday Times reported that EE had sold to Ipsos MORI the personal data of 27 million mobile phone users, including their gender, age and postcode, the websites they visited, the time of day texts were sent, and the location when the texts were sent. Customers were clearly not aware that their data were being handed on and used in this way. Ipsos MORI then met with the Metropolitan police to discuss ...
[IMG: Conference Rally2] The other day, I was watching 'The Terminator' (one of my favourite films) for the umpteenth time and it occurred to me that it perfectly illustrated how the Liberal Democrat Leadership Programme came about... Picture the scene. The date is Friday, 8th May, 2015, and many Lib Dems emerge bleary-eyed from their homes, council buildings and school halls after attending counts or watching Peter Snow's swing-o-meter twitch as the results come in on TV. In this future, we have had a good election, increasing the number of seats we hold. Of course, this should be a cause ...
It's been a trying week or so on Planet Bureaucrat, as I had a notoriously tricky exam nearly two weeks ago, and have been waiting for the result since then. But, on Friday, the waiting was to be over. The result was to be sent to my work e-mail address, so I caught my usual Suffolk Links bus to Stowmarket, found a seat on the 8.11 train, and sat back with a good book as we trundled through the mid-Suffolk countryside on a sunny morning. All was well, at least until the point where the train stopped in the middle ...
Newspaper billboards in London proclaim "Royal Baby Frenzy!", but apart from the bevvy of now rather tired journalists camped outside the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge is waiting to give birth to her overdue infant, who really cares? Not a single person has mentioned the subject to me, and I turn over related stories [...]
As a tribute to the comedian Mel Smith, who died yesterday, here is his Conservative Party Political Broadcast from Not the Nine O'Clock News:
A few weeks ago, I wrote that the Telegraph's attempts to make another expenses scandal out of MPs claiming for travel for their children between London and their constituency as they are allowed to do under the rules. For me, I am happy to pay as a taxpayer to pay this price to ensure that Parliament has parents of young children within it. While there were some clearly egregious examples of abuse of the expenses system which shocked us all in 2009, I have always said that politicians, in the main, whatever party they are from, are decent people who ...
. Towards the end of the SLF's Manchester conference, held again on the Saturday closest to Bastille Day, Michael Steed stood up to speak. He was introduced by the Chair, Gareth Epps, as a past President of the Liberal Party. Michael reminded the conference that he and I had been in Manchester 40 years ago when he was the candidate in the Manchester Exchange by election - he came within 2000 votes of winning. Now that is a thought to conjure with; what impact would he had if he'd have won ? (I know with an absolute certainty that the ...
Steve Webb came along to the Social Liberal Conference to give the William Beveridge lecture. As Minister for Pensions and a Professor of Social Policy he is eminently well qualified to do so. He has the advantage of having read Beveridge rather than just assuming he knows what the great man thought. I should begin by saying that there is a Southport connection with Beveridge as he made clear in a letter to Robert Martin the Liberal candidate in the 1945 election 'I am more than sorry not to able to visit Southport during the Election because I will miss ...
Many thanks to the 11,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... David Ward has party whip withdrawn over "Jews" comment (86 comments) by The Voice John Kampfner: "Clegg is set to be kingmaker again in 2015″ (48) by Stephen Tall Trident: the Grand Old Lib Dems have lost this war already (58) by Stephen Tall The Liberal Democrat Equal Marriage Act Roll of Honour (8) by Caron Lindsay Vince: Deal on Mansion Tax vetoed "from above" (29) by Caron Lindsay Social Liberal Forum responds to the motion on the economy (42) by ...
This may seem slightly premature as I'm only about a tenth of the way through the game but I am alreadyhooked which is rare for any game. Usually I get a day or so in, hit a snag or a tricky bit and put the game down for a while or I come home from work and I am too tired to play but this one... this one had me the moment the first title screen started rolling. I have never really played any Lara Croft games before. I was a teenager at the time the first one came out ...
Episode 68 of the House of Comments podcast is out. It's the first in a series of summer specials where we talk one on one to guests about politics. In this episode, I talk to LBC presenter and lobby journalist Ian Collins about the current state of politics and the prospects for the next two years in the run up to the 2015 general election. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe. You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here. Or you ...
It's another glorious weekend of sport, if you're into that sort of thing. In Paris, the Tour de France comes to its climax on the Champs Elysees, unusually at twilight rather than mid afternoon. You wait 99 races for a British rider to win the Tour de France and it very much looks as if two are going to come along in succession. And then there's the Open, from the beautiful East Lothian Muirfield course. Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has very famously refused to go to Muirfield because it's all male. Credit where it's due. He can't go back ...
I have lost count of the number of times Mind Candy, the company behind Moshi Monsters, gets mentioned in the business press as the great hope of UK business. Apparently 75 million children have signed up worldwide, and there was its founder filling the 'business person' slot to comment on the final round of The Apprentice. Well, I'm not a fan. In fact, this is the kind of blog post you can only really write over the age of 55 (which I now am) so please be understanding as you read it - but my feeling is that, if something ...
[IMG: 4303825588_a862e74ce0_m] I was intrigued yesterday when a tweet with the hashtag #freedomweek crossed my Twitter timeline. I was even more intrigued when I had a look at the hashtag itself. You may all know all about this already, but it turns out Freedom Week is a type of summer school held at Cambridge University and organised by the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute. It appears to be an occasion for the simple certainties of undiluted libertarianism to be imprinted upon impressionable young minds. You know the sort of thing that goes along with this Manichean ...
posted The Blood is The Life 20-07-2013 http://t.co/LZxd6eXg6M on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) The BBC is colluding in the government's attack on benefit claimants (tags: ) The Ginvent Calendar Advent calendars are SO passe, dahling. (tags: ) posted My Big Bro is doing some Charitable Fundraising http://t.co/y1mpXh8vPj on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) J.K. Rowling and the Chamber of Literary Fame - Bloomberg (tags: ) I'm doing @Armpits4August for Verity this year. My @JustGiving page is here: http://t.co/aLRQPdLLE1 all donations gratefully recieved. (tags: (from twitter) ) Do we have the right to pardon Turing? ...
As Toby James reports: [IMG: Electoral registration form] Soon, every citizen in Britain will need to register individually and provide key personal identifiers in order to register. When this was introduced in Northern Ireland there was a significant decline in levels of electoral registration... One idea that the government has been exploring to prevent any drop is data-mining. This involves registration officers using other government databases, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, the Student Loans Company etc., to find the names and addresses of people who are not on the register. They can then be written to and ...
131391: Demolition of existing extension and construction of side and rear extension, Rosebery Avenue. 131400: Variation of opening hours condition, High Street. 131407: Alterations as part of change of use from office to restaurant, North Hill. 131408: Listed building consent for 131407. 131433: Demolition of modern extension, and creation of new one, Tymperleys, Trinity Street. 131434: Listed building consent for 131433. You can make a statement in favour or against any of these applications on the Council website, or if you want to discuss it further with one of your councillors then please contact me or my ward colleagues Bill ...
I owe Labour an apology for labelling the push a few years ago to reduce Heads' discretion on family holidays as "Nanny State": no consultation with parents, just an assumption that only the state & education system could be trusted with a child's best interests. There was a parent rebellion at our local primary school. Nanny has now been replaced by the Patriarchal State in an approach that implies "As some pupils have been skiving, the whole school will be kept in." As of this September, approval of all family holidays during term time is banned other than in "exceptional" ...
As residents are aware, as the Secretary of Friends of Magdalen Green, I have been supporting the Friends' campaign for improvements for the Roseangle playpark. The campaign is ably led by Sharon Dickie and Alice La Rooy and Sharon has sent an update on two forthcoming fundraising events - don't miss these! Teddy Bears Picnic - 28th July : 2pm to 4pm in Magdalen GreenCome along to Magdalen Green for a picnic with your favourite Teddy's and their friends. We will be having a bake sale, face-painting, story-telling and teddy bear themed craft items for sale. The Dundee Instrumental Band ...
Trident, Britain's nuclear weapons system, divides opinion. That was apparent this week when the Government published the results of a two-year, detailed study of the alternatives. Some people say Britain should surrender our nuclear weapons tomorrow, regardless of what threats we face. While others seem to believe it's unpatriotic to even consider anything other than the full-scale Trident system we built for the Cold War threats of yesterday. Personally, I think the world has changed. I am not, and never have been, a believer in unilateral disarmament. But I do share President Obama's belief that the world's nuclear powers can ...
