[IMG: Paddy Ashdown campaigning] 25 years ago, Paddy Ashdown became leader of the party then known officially as the Social and Liberal Democrats. Here's an excerpt from what he wrote for The Guardian on his first morning as leader: Hope, said Francis Bacon, is a good breakfast, but a poor supper. On my first morning as the new leader of a new party, standing at seven per cent in the opinion polls, I know what he meant! But at the end of a bruising and often damaging period in the fortunes of the Social and Liberal Democrats , there is ...
Paddy Ashdown: "The real difficulty is not in finding the policies, it's in persuading the public of their central importance." 25 years ago today, Paddy Ashdown assumed the leadership of the Social & Liberal Democrats, taking over from the interim leadership of David Steel and Bob Maclennan. It was a difficult time to take over as leader. The previous year, the Alliance had failed to make the hoped for electoral impact and had descended into undignified infighting and, later, a farcical merger. The new party was lacking credibility and the opinion polls pointed to public support around the 7-8 per ...
An excellent public meeting of the BLAG Library Campaign Group took place at St Johns Church Hall on Thursday night, attended by 100 concerned residents. I will be reporting more fully later, but in the meantime I thought it would be useful to share some analysis that my Birkdale Ward colleague Simon Shaw prepared and shared with the meeting. Simon was concerned about how many books would be actually available on display to borrow under the Sefton CVS Consortium proposal to take over our Libary Building. Last Monday he went along to Birkdale Library, effectively to do some measuring up, ...
One hundred years ago in St Andrews jute manufacturer Joseph Bowman Grimond and his wife Helen, welcomed a son into the world. He would be named after his father, but would end up being known to many and Liberals for generations simply as Jo. After qualifying with a first class honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford he went on to become a barrister and publisher, before the outbreak of World War II saw him along with many other young men sign up for the army. He was discharged with the rank of Major and as ...
As you speed through Kelmarsh on the A508 you may spot these two terraces across the road from the lodge gates of the Hall. What you will not discover, unless you are there on foot, is this plaque on the end wall of one of them. Though he lived at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire, Colonel Lancaster was Conservative MP for the Lancashire constituencies of Fylde and then Fylde South between 1938 and 1970. He has been mentioned on this blog before, in a post on Nancy Keene Perkins and Ronald Tree. The story of the fire that destroyed the cottages ...
You'll be familiar with "Shag, Marry, (Throw Off A) Cliff" and all its bowdlerised* variations. It doesn't do a lot for me: it's judgemental, it's shallow, and you never get the exact number of people to pass your shallow judgement on. As Richard drove us through the wilds of Cambridgeshire on Saturday on our return from holiday, I had an epiphany for something more interesting: Yaxley, Stilton, Ramsay. We were listening to The News Quiz, and as usual groaning or heckling at all the usual tired bollocks. But how to freshen up your reaction to faux-lefty faux-comics with stale material? ...
There are some open differences of opinion going on in the Coalition Government at the moment. Eric Pickles was taken to task by our Norman Baker over his idea to allow people to park on double yellow lines. The Guardian says: Asked about the plan, Baker said on Monday that "both sides of the coalition" wanted high streets to prosper and that he agreed that over-zealous action by traffic wardens could be a problem. But he also expressed reservations about Pickles's idea. "The idea of actually having cars parked for a very long period of time on a double yellow ...
There were two forceful articles in the blogosphere today, both based in fears about Nick Clegg's strategy in general and a Telegraph article by Isabel Hardman - "Airy-fairy Lib Dems must face life outside the goldfish bowl" - in particular. Simon Titley wrote on Liberator's blog: Over the past year, a repeated theme of Clegg's speeches has been the baseless accusation that many of his party's members do not want to win or hold power, accompanied by the bogus claim that, until he became leader, the Liberal Democrats were merely a party of protest. ... Clegg even made these accusations ...
Email firms have got pretty good at dealing with spam – blocking real spam and not blocking non-spam by mistake – over the years. There are six lessons from that which are highly applicable to the current debate about vile abuse on Twitter: Automatic algorithms get pretty good – given enough time and financial investment. Spam filters such as Google's are available to use for free and vastly better than the things people used to pay lots of money for. But they're not perfect – human judgement and intervention is a key part of a good system. Blocking messages is ...
This evening Rutland County Council voted to indemnify its chief executive and other officers to take legal action against three of its own members. The potential costs are estimated at £150,000. For the background see my post from last week. In that post I described the three councillors under threat as members of UKIP. They certainly announced they were joining UKIP only a month ago and met Nigel Farage. Yet if you look at their 4Rutland site today you will find no mention of UKIP. Odd.
The BBC reports: Four women who were part of a vote rigging operation at a Derby election have been sentenced. Polling clerk Nasreen Akhtar, 46, from Derby, admitted malpractice, while her nieces Tameena Ali, 27, and Samra Ali, 28, both of St Chad's Road, admitted personation in the May 2012 election. At Derby Crown Court, Akhtar was jailed for 14 months. Her nieces were given eight months suspended for 18 months. The fraud aimed to give more votes to a Labour council candidate. The local Liberal Democrats have called for the person who won the election to face a by-election ...
Simon Shaw addresses the BLAG meeting The people of Birkdale turned out in force for Public Meeting at St Johns Church Hall in Birkdale last week, called by the Birkdale Library Action Group (BLAG), . The meeting was convened following the decision, 10 days ago, of Sefton Council's ruling Cabinet (Labour Controlled) to reject a bid submitted by BLAG which would have secured a future for the threatened Birkdale Library. Instead the Bootle-dominated Cabinet decided, in principle, to allow the building to be taken over by a consortium headed by Sefton CVS. BLAG Chair, Terry Durrance explained how he and ...
The annual Reading of the Yorkshire Declaration of Integrity, at 11.38am, at Redcar Town Clock. This year it will be read by Charles Dickens (Chris Foote-Wood, right) in modern English but there is also a mighty Viking (John Curr, below) who will read it in Old Norse. Silk white roses will be on sale at £1 and all proceeds go to Redcar Lifeboat. The event will also be attended by His Worship the Mayor of Redcar and Cleveland, Councillor Vic Jeffries. There will be stalls and attractions for all. We're part of the ring of roses around Yorkshire There will ...
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, Round-up 2, Round-up 3 and Round-up 4 on this blog. Alex Marsh The New Few: Or a Very British Oligarchy by Ferdinand Mount One of the most interesting books I've read recently. Much of the critical commentary on the changing nature of British society originates with the political ...
[IMG: Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice] with a little 'assist' from His Lordship...... A note has arrived from Bonkers Hall: what am I reading this summer? I am not alone, so far Liberal England has published three Summer reading lists from bloggers. Round up 1 was Alan Wyburn Powell (Liberal History to you and me), Linda Jack and Gareth Epps. Round up 2 was Iain Dale, Mark Pack and Iain Sharpe and joining me on Round up 3 Nick Barlow and Tim Holyoake. Broadhurst Bookshop in Southport -you don't have to buy from Amazon With only two choices it is ...
I thought we'd won. The same-sex marriage debates showed the impotency of the old right-wingers, those stalwarts who opposed every happy thought and every freedom. We were free, free at last! But the forces of conservatism come in many guises and whilst we were defeating the elderly conservative contingent, the right-on feminist contingent snuck in the back door and started agitating with "Down With This Sort Of Thing" placards. David Cameron, that "liberal conservative" Stonewall were swooning over the other week, has reiterated his support for a "porn filter" which will filter more than just porn and should be better ...
It is true - Cornwall Council is not going to pay for bins (whether wheelie or otherwise) for every home in Cornwall. I'm not entirely sure why this story deserved to be the front page lead in today's Western Morning News. Back in 2010, the council took the decision to move to a single waste contract for the whole of Cornwall. Stopping having six different contracts saved a heck of a lot of money. The new service didn't start too well - in fact it was a total disaster for the first couple of months. But it has now bedded ...
The latest cunning wheeze from Local Government minister Eric Pickles is that drivers should be allowed to park for up to 15 minutes on double yellow lines. He thinks that this is the answer to helping high street retailers out of the current economic woes. It is important to encourage visitors into town centres, but yellow lines are in place for a reason. Allowing motorists a 'grace period' to park for a short period of time would cause danger and inconvenience to pedestrians and other road users, making it harder for people to cross the road and increasing congestion as ...
Monday: Dear Prime Prude, Can it be only a year since the LAST time that the No Sex Please We're British Brigade tried to censor the Internet? If you want to reduce the "damage" that might be caused by online images, you want to be making young people MORE comfortable with the idea of naked human bodies, rather than flapping about saying how BAD it is to see them; and breezily conflating the terms "child abuse" and "things a child might see" and "things that make me squeamish/things I cannot admit to liking" is only going to make matters worse. ...
Electric cars are a developing technology, promising to make our communities less polluted and create new jobs if they can make it into the mainstream. One big problem is the need for recharging – just like petrol and diesel cars, they're of limited use if you can't refuel. That's why the ten Greater Manchester boroughs have used Government funding to install eletric vehicle recharging points in the big towns and cities, plus the Trafford Centre. Electric car users (who can already park for free in any Stockport Council public car park) can recharge either via the membership scheme or on ...
So according to the Torygraph, Cleggy is looking for laydeez to ennoble, to correct some of our woeful gender balance issues in parliament. I don't necessarily support this option, given that I'd quite like to see the HoL reformed, and it'd be even better if we could get more ladies elected to the commons, but given our standing in the polls at the moment, I suspect that option isn't going to be a viable one. That said, I can think of several who deserve to be ennobled. Helen Duffett is the first to spring to mind. Helen is someone who ...
I have today spoken with a large number of residents who are naturally furious at the explosion of graffiti vandalism that happened in the Blackness Road/Glamis Road area overnight. Although there has been, over the years, several phases of bad spates of graffiti appearing, what happened overnight must be one of the worst examples of a large amount of graffiti spread over a wide area that I have come across. The vandalism is across a large number of private garages, doors, walls and other sites as well as bus shelters and utility boxes - see some examples below taken earlier ...
There will be A Ring of Roses round Yorkshire on Thursday. The Yorkshire Ridings Society has sent out well over a hundred flags so far and these, in addition to many others which are due to be flown on Thursday. Orders are still arriving and members are delivering the last few flags. So great has been the interest that the society has had to order more flags.Hopefully, all the flags which have been ordered will be flown on Yorkshire Day.If you have a Yorkshire Flag please fly it on Thursday.Thanks to all those people who have agreed to take part ...
I have posted about this a number of times in recent months but thought the letter below may well be of interest.It has gone to all the 10 Parish/Town Councils in Sefton. It is from the umbrella organisation that all 10 Parish/Town Councils are a part of. Lydiate Parish Council, which I am a member of, has already expressed its concerns as previously detailed on this blog. The proposed site for the wind farm is actually in West Lancashire not Sefton. 17 July 2013 To: Clerks to the Parish Councils of the SAPLC (Sefton Association of Parish and Local Councils) ...
[IMG: Luton Central Library] This evening (Monday 29 July 2013) the Executive of Luton Borough Council will consider the results of the recent public consultation on the future of the town's library service and make some decisions on what shape it will take in the future. How libraries are provided in Luton is a little bit complicated, although I believe the system works well. Luton Borough Council has a statutory obligation to provide a library service for the town and so will take a lead in determining its shape and have led on the public consultation. The majority of the ...
Blogging how hard can it be, think of a subject and add some words, easy, the right words, grammar and punctuation, is the tortuous part. I have opinions on most topics. Israel for instance, yesterday I listened to BBC's Last Word, a programme featuring obits of significant people, who've pegged out, in the last week, the first subject was Helen Thomas, a well respected Washington Journalist, who commenting on Israel said this "There no real freedom of speech in this country(USA) if you mention Israel" which I believe is sadly true, in the news today, talks are to restart concerning ...
A Little ironic today in the Guardian, an article on how mental health issues such as anxiety are now determined by the government in purely cost analyst terms, your mental health issue costs x-amount of working hours lost etc..., and then an article from Irritable Duncehead Smith, on how he is PROUD of his welfare reforms. What he forgot to mention was that he really wants workhouses and poor houses back in each town, to rid the streets of the filth of the poor.
Some years ago my portfolio as a Cabinet member in Kingston Council included Communications. My first act was to set about enforcing the use of Plain English in all communications between the Council and residents. Although leaflets had been subjected to scrutiny, and many had won the Crystal mark, hundreds of standard letters were still written in 'councilese'. So with the officers I set up a Better Letters campaign, which named and shamed the worst, and awarded plaudits to the most improved letters, as well as providing advice. One of my favourite sentences appeared in the standard letter telling residents ...
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. More than 600 party members have responded, and we're publishing the full results. We asked about the party's decision to suspend the whip from Bradford MP David Ward. This followed controversy in February when ha made controversial comments about Jews (David Ward summoned by Clegg after 'Jews' comments – BBC) and then again in July when he tweeted calling Israel an "apartheid state" and saying that "Zionists" were "losing the battle (MP ...
Female Genital Mutilation, or FGM, is a thoroughly unpleasant practice. It is painful, dangerous, unnecessary, damaging to young girls and women in later life and a violation of their human rights. FGM has been high [...]
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The constituencies where the LDs will be most vulnerable at GE2015 and those where they are likely to do best First-time Lib Dem MPs get a 3.1% first-time incumbency boost http://bit.ly/1e5rusb. But 4.7% deficit for non-incumbents defending seats. Too much talk for one planet: why I'm reducing my word emissions | Charlie Brooker | Comment is free | The Guardian Not that he wants the applause, but brilliant as ever from Charlie Brooker: "Too much talk for one planet" http://bit.ly/1c5ffiH Top Ten Lib Dem Conference Moments Ever ...
[IMG: Vince Cable - Some rights reserved by Liberal Democrats] On the Andrew Marr Show yesterday Vince Cable expressed concerns about the Government's Help to Buy scheme. He claims that the government's mortgage guarantee scheme could inflate the market, leading to another housing bubble. Under Help to Buy, launched earlier this year, anyone purchasing a newly built home costing less that £600,000 will be able to apply for a 20% government guaranteed loan with just a 5% deposit. This is clearly intended to boost the housing market and to create new jobs in the building and related industries, such as ...
This is reposted from Grannies Last Mix, which in turn reposted it from Bedroom Tax ; the story concerns Sue and Steve from Norfolk, although dated April, I have seen no follow up and assume Steve is still on this 'enforced budget and therefore the diet'. I would like to see anyone supporting this Tax. and Lib Dem that defends this Tax, to try and follow Steve's budget and diet for one week. First some old history. In November 2000, I was in a car accident in which a car hit me from behind while I was parked off the ...
Studies of public perceptions of geoengineering have implications for the 'greens vs science' debate Nature - whether preserving, protecting, or even deifying it - is at the heart of much green thinking and much scientific work. But pinning down exactly what "nature" means is more difficult than it first appears, and over the course of millennia, the way that people have imagined and perceived the natural world has changed repeatedly and often dramatically. So a central tenet of much green thinking - that humans should not damage or otherwise interfere with the natural world - is a very complex statement ...
I agree with Owen Jones. It might not be as catchy as I agree with Nick but in the context of this blog is it far more applicable. Do I agree with everything he has to say? No, no I don't. No-one agrees with everything another person has to say, so what exactly am I agreeing with here? Well Owen's piece in the Independent's Voices section entitled Trolls, Caroline Criado-Perez, and how to tackle the dark side of Twitter. He makes some extremely salient points but the one I want to talk about is the difference between trolling and disagreement, ...
The green movement is not anti-science. It just knows science is not enough The green movement obviously owes a great deal to science: the impacts of pollution, the threat of climate change, the loss of species, can only be spoken about because of the scientific research that has made them known. Without this knowledge from science the green movement in its current form would not exist. Like scientists, greens are children of the Enlightenment. Both tend to think that decisions are, or at least should be, made on the basis of rational arguments, by appeal to the evidence. However, greens ...
[IMG: Cover of Pure by Andrew Miller] I think the trick to writing good historical fiction is probably to do extensive and wide ranging research, to really immerse yourself in your period, and then to forget about it all and tell a story. The last novel I reviewed here demonstrated a rich understanding of period but was at root a story of human psychology. This novel also feels like it was written by an author who deeply understands their historic period but wanted to tell a story of relationships and ideas. 'Pure' is set in Paris in 1785. A young ...
I've been brought up by my Nan and my Mum to believe women are my equals. I work in an overwealmingly female workplace (and industry). The people I know personally who I most admire are all women. But the messages I've been getting from feminists over the last weekend seem to be completely at odds with my beliefs. What do I mean? Well it seems "young girls" (for which read 18 year old women) aren't capable of making decisions about what to do for work until they are 21. Doesn't anyone think this infantalises women somewhat? Are you really saying ...
[IMG: fordham and eagling] Last week Lib Dem Voice reported the engagement of Ed Fordham and Russell Eagling, long time Lib Dem activists, which was the first same sex engagement to be announced in the Births, Marriages and Deaths column of The Times. This fact had been mentioned by Julian Huppert during the final Commons debate on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, to an amusing put-down by the Speaker. The Independent followed this up on Friday with a delightful full page article (with a beautiful photo) about the couple under the heading: Gay marriage first: How Ed got down ...
Operation Black Vote carries news of a protest in Brixton last Saturday over the threat to deselect a newly-selected Labour council candidate, apparently on grounds that she used to be a Liberal Democrat. The "witch-hunt" [...]
The annual Blyth and Tyne Model Railway Society exhibition will be held at the Parks Sports Centre, North Shields on 24th and 25th August Full details are at http://www.railexne.com/
An article about the 'Women Who Kick Ass' panel at #SDCC and the gender issues discussed therein. http://t.co/huUnd0PwH7 (tags: (from twitter) sdcc ) posted The Blood is The Life 28-07-2013 http://t.co/A1ahiD9O6k on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) http://miss-s-b.dreamwidth.org/1414652.html @Channel4News no, and I'm a reasonably strident feminist. See blog post here: http://t.co/o9TudF2qOp (tags: (from twitter) ) I wish I could hit "like" multiple times on this post http://t.co/YOyLtJoHUv (tags: (from twitter) ) http://www.guardian.co.uk/p/3hj5c/tw Vince Cable calls campaign targeting illegal immigrants 'stupid and offensive' http://t.co/kkVZ5bLLFp via @guardian (tags: (from twitter) ) Martin Robbins on the porn panic fuelled ...
[IMG: Sandgate Family Fun Day Flyer] Sandgate Family Fun Day, Military Road Recreation Ground 10am-5pm This event is to celebrate the launch of Sandgate's newly refurbished sports facilities Bring a picnic and enjoy music whilst your children enjoy: face painting ~ fancy dress competition ~ inflatables ~ childrens fun fair ~ Miss Sandgate 2013 ~ fun dog show ~ free circus skills sessions ~ Falcons and more. For more information about Dog Show, Fancy Dress Comp & Miss Sandgate 2013 call Sandgate Parish council office on 01303 248563. Published and promoted by Tim Prater, 98a Sandgate High Street, Folkestone, CT20 ...
[IMG: Carrots at Farmer's Market - Some rights reserved by Ed Yourdon] Public opinion is swinging in favour of GM crops and foods, but are Lib Dem voters really leading the pack? Here on Lib Dem Voice in June, Baroness Kate Parminter said that it is the duty of the government to take into account public opinion when deciding whether to give the go-ahead to GM crops and food. It now seems that public sentiment is shifting in favour of GM food. A survey published by the Independent last week suggested that 42% of people agree with growing GM crops ...
It always surprises me how it sometimes takes a celebrity publicly speaking out before a government policy starts to gain traction with the public. As Richard Kemp points out here, the UK Government is already taking action to try and counter the insidious impact of pay day loan companies. I have quoted his article extensively below: The current regulator OFT is in the midst of tough enforcement and compliance activity. Since March, OFT have sent compliance letters to each of the 50 leading payday lenders they reviewed (which together account for 90% of the market). Of the 21 that have ...
I met by old chum Cllr. David Sumner last Wednesday at a Sefton Council Planning Committee meeting and because we are both interested in railways he told me the sad story of the recent vandalism on the station which is maintained and indeed has been considerably improved by the work of a volunteer group led by David, his wife Pat and Dr Jim Ford. [IMG: Cllr. David Sumner] Cllr. David Sumner Meols Cop is an odd station because whilst it is in Merseyside it is not really much loved by our Integrated Transport Authority Merseytravel. The trains calling at the ...
It's being billed as a set piece set-to. The rapidly approaching Autumn Conference in Glasgow is of great significance. Discussions that shape the content of the next General Election manifesto will be at the core of the agenda. It would...Read more ›
Business Secretary, Vince Cable went onto TV yesterday to make clear his and the Liberal Democrats' opposition to a Home Office initiative that has seen vans scouring the streets of some London boroughs displaying messages telling illegal immigrants to go home or face arrest. According to the Telegraph, Vince called the scheme 'stupid and offensive'. The paper says that he spoke out about his wider concerns over Conservative immigration policy ahead of the launch of his new initiative tomorrow to attract tens of thousands more foreign students to this country. Vince said it was already difficult to be an immigrant ...
There has been some debate lately about whether Nick Clegg will survive as Liberal Democrat leader until the next general election. But increasingly, it seems that whether the Liberal Democrats have had enough of Clegg is the wrong question. It's more a matter of whether Clegg has had enough of his party. Over the past year, a repeated theme of Clegg's speeches has been the baseless accusation that many of his party's members do not want to win or hold power, accompanied by the bogus claim that, until he became leader, the Liberal Democrats were merely a party of protest. ...
It seems simple enough – a high profile campaigner gets some publicity and starts receiving some pretty horrible abuse online as a result. Twitter should therefore install a magic "report abuse" button that will make all this go away. As with many simple solutions, it's also wrong. And unfortunately not just slightly wrong but dangerously so for those most in need of protection. The scale of the problem What's being asked for is a single button to report an abusive tweet, rather than the existing web form. However, one of the issues in this case was complaints that Twitter took ...
There's nothing new about Blaydon Labour MP David Call-Me-Dave Anderson spitting venom at the Coalition Government. So let's take a look at Mr Anderson's latest attack. He lays into the Government for agreeing to upgrade the A14 in Cambridgeshire, claiming, "...it was noteworthy that the Government recently found £1.5bn to upgrade the A14 from Huntingdon to Cambridge and two years ahead of plan.
I am very pleased that someone trying to make a quick buck out of vulnerable people who are living with HIV and who are looking for a quick cure has been convicted in the Courts and will now have to pay for his crimes. Today in the first ever prosecution of its kind for the [...]
The views on this aggregator are a collections of views from various people's blogs.
LibDemBlogs and the Liberal Democrats accept no responsibility for the posts made.
