Nicholas Witchell you really are a waste of space . We've got the detail (the time and weight). You really have nothing to do. Get off the tv. #bbcnews #witchell
Dear Your Highness, [IMG: Kate and William] Congratulations on being born! It's the first universal experience you'll share in common with your subjects-to-be. From now on, your life and the lives of the 2,000 other babies born in the UK today will begin to diverge. You probably won't notice this happen for a good, long while (nor will they). But, eventually, one day it will hit you: your life has been marked out to be different from the very start. The reason is simple. It's not just that, as every media outlet informs us, 'the whole world was waiting' for ...
The bio-mass generator planning application for Thomas Swan is to be decided at the county planning committee tomorrow. And on Wednesday a Liberal Democrat motion calling for a feasibility study into internet broadcasting of Council and Cabinet meetings is down for debate. We've written before about the biomass generator, and may of the initial fears have been allayed. There will be no use of manure, slurry or animal waste. The scheme will use only gas created by crops grown specifically for the purpose – grass, barley and maize – to power the generator. The landscaping will be comprehensive. But for ...
Lawrie Reilly the great Hibs forward of the 40s and 50s and last remaining member of the 'Famous Five' forward line that propelled Hibs to three titles in four years - has died at the grand age of 84. In a weekend of departures - including that of Bert Trautman - Reilly's contribution to Scottish and British football cannot be underestimated. The stats speak for themselves: Debut at 17, 18 hat-tricks, three league champion's medals, including back to back championsips in 1951 and 1952, 185 league goals and 22 goals for Scotland in just 38 appearances - a strike rate ...
When I was a boy there were two types of English: British and American. In England there was an attempt to wipe out regional accents and dialects (as a Lancashire lad, I was given elocution lessons, to speak all BBC. Shudder). And in Wales, where I spent a lot of weekends and holidays, there was [...]
It seems daily we read negative stories about our police, everything from rewriting police statements after the Hillsborough disaster, giving info to the newspapers, perhaps more revolting is the recent revelation that metropolitan police actively sought negative information about the family of murdered Stephen Lawrence. One common feature to many failings of our police is that many of their shortcomings are motivated by senior officers trying to present themselves in a more positive way and as we've seen this is done regardless of the hurt it causes to innocent victims of crime. Here in Kent our local force, has recently ...
I have invited some bloggers to nominate a couple of books they have enjoyed recently and write a few sentences about each. You are welcome to send me your own choices. I suggest you nominate one political and one non-political book, but I don't insist on that. You can read Round-up 1 and Round-up 2 on this blog. Nick Barlow 1688: The First Modern Revolution by Steve Pincus I've always thought that the Glorious Revolution and all the events that surrounded it are one of the most fascinating parts of British and world history, yet it's a period of history ...
The Evening Standard reports that the Home Office is planning on sending large billboards with "Go home or face arrest" on them around six London boroughs: The billboards will also display the number of illegal migrants arrested recently in the relevant part of the capital. Ministers say that the hardline message is intended to encourage visa overstayers or others here unlawfully to return voluntarily. A phone number offering help - including potential free flights and other travel assistance - will also be shown on the adverts along with the promise that those who come forward voluntarily will not be detained ...
There's been a very curious tweet from Tottenham Labour MP David Lammy today, in response to my blog post about the long break he is taking in holding surgeries over the summer and the many other ways in which he puts people off asking him for help. Everything in that blog post was sourced from David Lammy's own emails and website, both of which say he only holds surgeries by appointment. That also is what the Haringey Council website (the local authority which his constituency falls within) says. Yet he's now saying all of them are wrong: [IMG: David Lammy ...
Just when you thought Ed Miliband's self delusion could go any further: Ed Miliband replies to question about candidate selection: "Fewer former special advisers, that's what I say!" Laughs all round & applause. — joncraigSKY (@joncraig) July 22, 2013 Presumably he will be giving up his seat to set an example?
Today the High Court has decided ina a case broguht by Brent residents to block the raising of parking permit costs from £40 to £100 a year – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23406427 Justice Lang rules that Barnet Council acted unalwfully to use parking permits to generate more money for other purposes such as road maintenace. Barnet Council plans to appeal. But I get the sense that they'll fail. If they win an appeal it owuld mean paring permits could be used for revenue raising puproses which would go beyond the 1984 act allowing parking permits to be charged for. This potentially has a ...
. 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 ...
Here's a short (3 minute) video showing a few extracts from evidence Anna Soubry gave the HOC European Scrutiny Committee on 17 July 2013. She was called to appear before the Committee because she went to the EU General Council of ministers on June 21st to agree the general approach on the EU Tobacco Products Directive. She did this, and negotiated the UK position having totally bypassed the statutory UK parliamentary processes. That meant stifling any debate on ecigs in UK parliament. That is pretty serious. To then to appear confused (and wrong) about what she actually agreed on e-cigarettes ...
Last weekend there was outrage from The Daily Mail that Prince Charles had being lobbying government ministers to give more space for complementary medicine on the NHS. This provoked a piece on the BBC Today programme (at 0833) on Saturday morning. In this UCL's Professor David Colquhoun made short work of Tory MP David Tredinnick, who was attempting to defend homeopathy, the target of choice of those wanting to drive complementary medicine to the lunatic fringe. Indeed, very few advocates of complementary techniques do a decent job of defending them in public forums, quickly resorting to dodgy mumbo-jumbo and dubious ...
David Cameron gets tough on the internet corporations. He wants them to do more to combat online child pornography. A warning to flash up if someone puts in a vile search term, for example. I don't wish to diminish the appalling scurge of child pornography. "Every photo is a crime scene" says Cameron. I agree with that. In one sense this Cameron "initiative" (although I hesitate to describe it as such because I doubt whether Cameron's "proposals" have sufficient technical or intellectual rigour to be described as such) is laudable. Of course, the corporations could do more. In another sense, ...
You know the one. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness. Similarly, to make one questionable hiring decision concerning an adviser (namely Andy Coulson) can be regarded as a misfortune. To make two such decisions....... [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
[IMG: rsz_magnificent_tree_-_coronation_park_lydiate_07_13] I could not help but notice this magnificent tree in Lydiate's Coronation Park recently. With all the catkins from it on the ground it made it look like it had been snowing in our July heatwave! [IMG: rsz_snowing_in_lydiate_07_13]
In politics, appearing to do something is often more important than actually doing anything. This is especially so when tackling global phenomena over which individual governments have little or no control. In an appropriate spirit of impotent rage, Prime Minister David Cameron announced today that the British government was going to do something about online pornography: Most households in the UK will have pornography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron has announced.Two other reports suggest that this policy is not all it's cracked up to be. The first is the row between the ...
Mon 22nd
16:53
Martin Horwood MP writes... Balance of competence reports shows EU membership is crucial for UK jobs
The Government today published the long awaited first six reports of the review of the balance of competences between EU and national levels, due to be finalised at the end of 2014. The review has been overseen by a Ministerial star chamber with Lord Wallace of Saltaire leading impressively for the Liberal Democrats in the complicated process. Contrary to the perception in Eurosceptic ranks, this review is not and was never about creating a wish list of demands for unilateral repatriation of powers. Liberal Democrats have been unwavering in our arguments that the EU needs reform to make it more ...
Kent County Council Trading Standards has been advised of an email being sent to consumers purporting to be from Tesco Rewards Department, stating they have been randomly chosen to receive a £500 Tesco voucher reward, and apparently using the sender email address online@tesco.co.uk. This is believed to be a phishing email, whereby consumers are asked for their bank or credit card details, which may then be used for fraudulent purposes. If you receive such an email, be wary of clicking on any links attached to it. There is advice available on the Tesco website about how to identify a genuine ...
Very few things make my blood boil than getting a communication from a jobsworth which is pointless and resource consuming. I have just had one from a Bank in connection with an account for part of the Liberal Democrats. It ... Continue reading →
A new planning application has been received which is within Holyrood Ward as detailed below:- Application number: 56445 Type of application: Full Date Registered: 19/07/2013 Location: Kirkhams Service Station, 73 Bury Old Road, Whitefield, Manchester, M45 6TQ Proposal: Redevelopment of existing petrol filling station site; Erection of new sales building, forecourt canopy, ATM and associated works. Please let me know if you have any queries. Plans can be seen on the Council's website here. Tim
[IMG: "PC Baan" internet cafe in Seoul, Korea - Some rights reserved by Hachimaki] David Cameron is out to make the world a safer place by tackling what he sees as the problems caused by pornography. We don't really know the details of the policy yet, but with Cameron doing the rounds on TV and radio today we've got a reasonable idea of what he's got in mind. Block pornography by default Web filtering software is very common – most schools and businesses have it installed. It does a passable job of blocking access to undesirable sites whilst allowing others. ...
Austerity has meant the end of council funding for flowerbeds in Whickham, Gateshead. So rather than seeing Church Green, at the heart of the Village, fully grassed over, residents, organised by Whickham North Councillor Peter Craig, raised the money (so far about £1800) to buy plants and then organised a group of volunteers to plant out the beds. I did some planting and watering (the rose from
David Cameron has written to Conservative members over the issue of porn filtering proposals today. Today I gave a speech about how we protect our children on the internet. I want for your children what I want for mine: that they're safe and that their innocence is protected. If you agree with me that it's ...
Year Six pupils from Gatley Primary School won the Stockport Young Entrepreneurs Award last week, with their book 60 ways to survive the summer. They beat off stiff competition from other schools to take the prize, and are now promoting the book which you can buy for just £3.50. As the title suggests, the book is full of great ideas to help kids – and parents – make it through the summer holidays. You can find out more – and order your copy, from the website.
From today's Times (£): [IMG: Ed and Russell Times cropped] Mr E T Fordham, of course, is better known to us all as Ed, vice-chair of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats who, along with many others from that organisation, took pride of place in our Equal Marriage Roll of Honour. We knew of his and Russell's happy news already, of course, because Julian Huppert had told the world about it during the Commons' final passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill and been told off by the Speaker. The exchange is recorded forever in Hansard: Perhaps the whole House will join ...
Stephen Tall suggested that Nick Clegg's motion on the economy, to be debated at party conference in Glasgow, marked the beginning of the 2015 general election campaign for the Liberal Democrats. I disagree. The road to 2015 began the day...Read more ›
Yeah, this morning the BBC went into a frenzy as I was making breakfast and watching BBC Breakfast. The number of non-Royal Baby news stories, and indeed the weather that somehow earned some mention of the news item, for which the only news we have is that the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted in the early stages of Labour was rolling and almost continuous. Going live every 15 minutes to poor Nicholas Witchell who would only have something new to report if he donned scrubs and snuck inside the Lindo Wing of St. Mary's Paddington himself. But then when the ...
mapsontheweb: Number of police officers per 100 000 inhabitants in Europe Source: Bezbojnicul (reddit)
[IMG: Royal family] Of course the birth of a baby is a joyous occasion and only the most cold-hearted of person would fail to wish any new parents and their newborn well. But, that having been said, today's sycophantic media coverage of the Duchess of Cambridge's going into labour has shown, yet again, that all too many journalists appear to lose their critical faculties when it comes to anything Royal. They seem to forget that polls consistently show that a sizeable percentage of the population support a democratic alternative to the Monarchy, a Republic. I feel for the baby itself; ...
In 101 Ways To Win An Election, Ed Maxfield and I wrote that: Data is your organisational lifeblood ... You need to love and cherish data, and keep a close eye on both quality and quantity. Far too often, campaigners fail to keep an eye on either, resulting in lost opportunities and mistakes made. How do you avoid that trap? Here are my five top tips. 1. Backup, backup, backup [IMG: USB memory stick. Some rights reserved http://www.sxc.hu/photo/845473] Think how much time and money goes into gathering data. Ask yourself if you and everyone else with access to the data ...
Following the sad and unnecessary death of Hassan Mahmood last week his friends have launched a campaign to raise funds for a project in Niger.
Some MPs rightly get annoyed when the press and public talk about Parliamentary recess being "holiday" for they continue to work hard in their constituencies during recess. Labour's MP for Tottenham David Lammy (aka the man who got away over his expenses thanks to his second home claims coming out before the media got interested in the topic), however, is just the sort of MP who gives those others a bad name. Here is what he emailed residents on 12th July: Due to the parliamentary recess, my next advice surgery will be on Friday 13th September. If you want to ...
Well we all know the answer to that question, don't we? We've all watched Blackadder Goes Forth so we know it was a futile conflict and a criminal waste of human life. "Lions led by donkeys" and all that. Historian Professor Gary Sheffield begs to differ. In History Today, he argues that it was a just war. He reminds us that the war was started by the aggressive and expansionary policies of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). Had Britain not intervened, the Central Powers would have defeated France and Russia, and achieved complete hegemony over continental Europe. This argument ...
[IMG: SteamRoller] Resurfacing work, carried out on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council, will begin on the A4251 High Street and the A4251 Tring Road, Berkhamsted on 30 July. The £110,000 scheme to repair the worn-out road surface will be carried out between 8pm and 5am, using full road closures. It is expected that the work will take four nights to complete. Signed alternative routes will be in place. Further details about the works, including road closure and diversion information, will be available on www.hertsdirect.org/roadworks Access for residents and businesses with no alternative route to their premises will be maintained. This ...
So, if David Cameron and the Conservatives are to be believed, we are about to have an opt-in provision for 'adult content' on the internet. Strike another blow against freedom, I fear. Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly wild about some of the impacts that the internet has wrought - it has increasingly allowed the coarsening of political (and other) debate, amongst other things, and the easy availability of online pornography may well have had a negative impact on the way some people interact sexually - but in part that comes down to the way people use what is, ...
We at the Voice obviously wish the Duchess of Cambridge, and anyone else giving birth today, all the very best. However, you will be relieved to know that we won't be dispatching any members of our team to West London to hang around outside St Mary's Hospital and write copious amounts of rather hilarious speculation about what might be going on inside. We recognise that we might be missing a trick, and that, actually, people do want to hear men speculate about what Kate might be feeling, but we reckon we're on pretty safe ground with our readers. Two things ...
Various newspaper reports state that today David Cameron is going to make a keynote speech with regards to pornography and it will mean that people will have to actively opt-in to porn if they want to watch. The Prime Minister believes this will clean up the internet and protect children. At what point do we call David Cameron 'Helen Lovejoy' or 'Maude Flanders'? "We are taking action to help clean up the internet. One click to protect your home and keep your children safe." the Prime Minister will state. However I have a small problem with this. What if a ...
Government trying to regulate the web...what could possibly go wrong?
[IMG: Lib Dem logo] That's the question for the next edition of my monthly email newsletter, Liberal Democrat Newswire, going out later this week. Sign up for it here and make sure you don't miss out.
I structured my book Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes? like a whodunnit, and I've been fascinated that reviewers, including those amateur reviewers on Amazon, have begun to apologetically give the game away. Who did the deed? The middle classes themselves apparently. The reason I'm fascinated is that, while there is more than an element of truth about it - the middle classes cheer-led the disastrous processes which destroyed them - that wasn't quite the solution to the conundrum I had in mind while I was writing it. In fact, if anything did for the middle classes, it was the ...
The UK does not need a hair-trigger nuclear weapons system to keep it safe. To suggest otherwise is Cold War thinking at its most outdated - and last week it was a shame to see both the Conservative and Labour parties in denial... ...writes Danny Alexander in the Independent. Danny goes on to argue that the level of alertness of a weapons system should be justified by a threat level – a doctrine that is accepted for conventional weapons. He points out that we have an opportunity to take a positive step towards disarmament, and that this debate should not ...
Revd Geoffrey Clarke On the evening of Sunday 21st July we were privileged to attend the farewell service of long-standing Cheadle Methodist and URC Minister, Revd Geoffrey Clarke. Geoffrey came to Cheadle's Trinity Church in March 2002 and, with his wife Judith and two sons Michael and William, now moves on to minister in Worksop. It was especially moving to see not only Geoffrey's own congregation and URC and Methodist representatives, but also well-wishers from across the Christian denominations, from St Mary's Chuch, St Chad's Roman Catholic, St James, Bethany Community Church and others. Their presence is a testament to ...
Andrew Hickey on twitter has predicted the following:[I] expect Clegg will announce 'moderate' 'centrist' (i.e. horribly illiberal) 'compromise': "There are those who think we need to ban the internet entirely. Others want to force you to watch porn. But Liberal Democrats in the positive centre just want to tattoo the foreheads of porn-watchers with 'I am a perv': a sensible compromise that, we feel, properly reflects the mainstream, centrist, liberal consensus"Let's see how right he is, shall we? My prediction is that while Andrew's tattoo suggestion is probably a bit unlikely, Clegg is clueless enough about the internet to think ...
posted The Blood is The Life 21-07-2013 http://t.co/RwVCbjE473 on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) http://www.guardian.co.uk/p/3he6y/tw Why David Cameron's war on internet porn doesn't make sense http://t.co/kgknI78Z0m via @guardian (tags: (from twitter) ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Uncollected rubbish on Hornsey High Street - Summer 2013] During the hot weather, it's nice to have a bit of shade, a cold lemonade and some free time to relax. It's also nice to have clean streets and frequent rubbish collections - to avoid smelly, rotting rubbish from accumulating on our pavements. But unfortunately, Haringey Council have let residents down again. Take a look at the mess on Hornsey High Street and Lymington Avenue. Even worse - take a look at this tweet from a local resident - who has had to deal with maggots due to Haringey Council's ...
Our last Manifesto included a commitment to "reform business rates, creating a fairer system where rates are based on site values rather than rental values. "Site Value Rating" (SVR - a purely local tax) had been party policy for decades but until 2010 never made it to a manifesto. The Party had never embraced a Land Value Tax (LVT) as a key part of our national economic policy. Since the debt-fuelled property boom led to the present global financial crisis there have been statements in support of LVT from leading figures in all the other parties. Tory Planning Minister Nick ...
I am on Wave 102 News this morning about my call for tennis court improvements at Victoria Park. You can listen to the interview by clicking 'play' below:
Today's Western Mail reports that the office of Gwent police commissioner Ian Johnston has a £987,700 budget for 2013-14, some £190,000 more than the final year of the previous Gwent Police Authority. They say that according to figures published by the Home Affairs Committee of MPs, the increase is the sixth highest of any police commissioner in the UK and the highest in Wales: A spokeswoman for Mr Johnston said £230,000 of his office's budget was a "contingency" to cater for "increased scrutiny and commissioning additional services". She added: "Any utilisation of the development contingency will be offset by savings ...
Possibly the only Alas Smith and Jones sketch to involve Colchester:
No more boom and bust. I am sure you remember that phrase and how much it was used at the start of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's New Labour Government. The thrust of their political strategy was to convince a hugely sceptical electorate that Labour would not tax and spend as all previous Labour governments had done. So the promise was no income tax rises and it worked as folk flocked to vote for New Labour who were supposedly no longer a big tax and big spend party. The economy was doing well so tax revenues were buoyant and this ...
Don't forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 26 July at 7 p.m in St George's Church on High Street. More detail....
I have today expressed concern that Dundee's recycling figures for the three months to June showed some concerning trends and have again called on the council to look again at the removal of bulky waste recycling facilities at Riverside and garden waste facilities at Baldovie, calling the removal of these facilities a totally false economy. The council's figures for April to June can be downloaded here. They were provided by a senior officer in the council's environment department and came with the following commentary: "I have provided some figures for April / May / June (since the closure of Marchbanks ...
Although the main focus for the Coalition Government remains tackling the deficit so as to start repaying debt, that has not stopped our opponents from focusing on the level of central government borrowing. Labour have consistently pointed out that borrowing is rising, as if they had a record to be proud of in this regard. In particular Labour MPs hit out at last year's figures, which they claimed showed that the Coalition was off course. Will Ed Balls apologise now that the latest data from the Office of National Statistics shows that in fact Government borrowing actually fell by £2.1 ...
If you're a Lib Dem reading this - and there's a fair chance you are - then you would have to have been hiding under a rock for some time not to know that our we want "a stronger economy and a fairer society, allowing everyone to get on in life". But then, who doesn't want that? It's fairly meaningless unless we relate these aims to policy - things achieved through the coalition, party policy and local policies. Not only that, but we need to relate those policies to people's everyday lives where we can (although the messaging medium may ...
