Reblogged from Liberal Democrats in Northern Ireland: by Áine McGrath Here we are more than 15 years after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was signed and I, like many others, am left with the feeling that what we were promised isn't what we've ended up with. The 1990s have proven to be a pivotal point in [...]
This afternoon I explored a deconsecrated church, found some Green Men and a foundation stone laid by J.W. Logan MP, and rediscovered the building where I drew with Nigel Short in a simultaneous display. My camera battery gave out just as I had discovered some Victorian factories to capture. As in previous years, I shall save up most of the discoveries from summer holiday until later in the year. (Reader's voice: I may be out in October.) And there is a word for my explorations of Leicester: Psychogeography is an ambiguous, debated and occasionally derided concept that in the last ...
The three Rutland Anti-Corruption Group councillors - who joined UKIP very publicly but no longer mention that party on their website - have hit back at the county council's decision to sue them. Their 4Rutland website reprints the letter their solicitor has sent to Rutland County Council. Here is just a taste: Your client will ... be well advised to immediately withdraw its instructions to you. Should your client continue its ill-conceived pursuit of me in any form, including action under the Pre-Action Protocol, it will be an abuse of its power. Should your client instigate proceedings, I shall, at ...
We know David Tredinnick, the Conservative MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire, believes in astrology and homeopathy. It now appears that he believes in homeopathy for animals. Tredinnick has put down an early day motion at Westminster that praises a Yorkshire farmer for using homeopathy with his flock and ends by calling on the government to: carry out a study into the level of homeopathic usage by farmers, what results have been achieved and what potential homeopathy offers for prevention of disease amongst livestock.He has been attacked for this, says the Leicester Mercury, by Michael Mullaney, the Liberal Democrat PPC for ...
Over the last couple of years we've done a lot of work getting the drainage sorted out at the bottom of Schools Hill (at the junction with Cheadle Road). There's not been one big problem – one issue that, if solved, would sort everything out. Part of the issue was stopping debris washing down the stream, which then got caught and caused flooding. The debris was sometimes a hundred metres or more away from the flooding so not easy to spot, but that was sorted. There's less of a problem on Schools Hill now, but still an issue. In September ...
Woodvale Park in Belfast is one of those locations that is surrounded by names that many around the world will even recognise. The Woodvale Road that leads up to the park is an extension of the Shankhill Road. Not far away at the Springfield Road which itself comes off the Falls Road and loops round the back of Falls Park and up in the hills where often they are messages of protest that can be seen from the M1. But it is also close to the Crumlin Road and as a result the Ardoyne shops, past which the Orange order ...
Some of the things I say below do not actually reflect my opinions. I don't feel I need to point out which bits... So as Lose The Lad's Mags campaign makes advances ahead of their 24th August action day it is time to start asking some important questions. These apply regardless of whether we're talking about the "modesty bag" solution favoured by the Co-Op and Tesco or the full on ban on lad's mags proposed by the campaign. 1. How much cleavage is too much? As we look to the future and the possibility (though slim given the falling popularity ...
[Introduction | Supers | Bats | Wonders & Lanterns | Solo Superheroes ] There are many things I dislike about the current nu52 lineup. One of the least pressing, naggling things is: There are too many Justice Leagues! I don't know what's up with Justice League Dark – whether they're called that in universe, or not, but with Justice League, Justice League of America AND Justice League International, I'm surprised any of the characters knows what's going on, let alone the readers. (On the other hand, maybe Trinity War is great: I haven't read it) I have, however, just read ...
Here are the Liberal Democrat entries in the top 100 political blogs as ranked by EBuzzing (Wikio as was). Jonathan Calder returned to the top 100 last month but drops out this time. Back in to the list comes Liberal Vision. 1 (5) Liberal Democrat Voice No chnage 2 (18) Mark Pack Down 1 3 (28) Stephen Tall Up 8 4 (41) Jennie Rigg Up 13 5 (57) Zoe O'Connell Down 35 6 (59) Nick Thornsby Up 4 7 (61) Paul Walter Down 5 8 (62) Lynne Featherstone MP Up 5 9 (63) Alex Marsh Down 6 10 (86) Richard ...
You might have seen Derek Laud, the former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, in the news recently accusing the Conservative Party of racism. As a former member of the ultra-Right wing Monday Club he should know. [...]
Making use of the slowest news month of the year, the Labour party has released details of a report which (shock horror) has shown that living standards have fallen as a result of the financial crisis and subsequent recession. Of course, they don't put it quite like that, choosing to blame the coalition rather than the bust they promised would never come. Here's Chris Leslie, Labour's shadow financial secretary to the Treasury (presumably Balls is on holiday...): David Cameron will go down in history as a disastrous Prime Minister for people's living standards. He is totally out of touch, his ...
It has been announced that Ian Swales, Liberal Democrat MP for Redcar, will chair a new group tasked with overseeing the streamlining and modernisation of Cleveland's ailing coroner service. Ian has attended meetings with all interested parties - the police, coroner's office and councils - to come up with a solution. Together, they launched a review which has revealed some administrative problems holding back progress in the coroner's office, leading to some of the worst backlogs in the country. Ian Swales is now to chair the group tasked with implementing the review to streamline and modernise the coroner's service in ...
[IMG: Dangerous_Dogs] Under current legislation dog owners can only be prosecuted if their dogs attack people in public spaces. Recent cases of dogs causing serious injury in the home, where the owners cannot be prosecuted, have prompted the Government to look again at the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. Earlier in the year the Government undertook to change the law so that owners would be held responsible for an attack by their dogs wherever the attack took place. In a further move, a public consultation is now underway to look at increasing the maximum sentence from 2 years to life, the ...
[IMG: Boarded Up Council House] We are now beginning to get some insight into the fallout from the Government's changes to the housing benefit underoccupation rules: the policy that Grant Shapps would like you to call the "spare room subsidy" but most people call the "bedroom tax". It is a topic I've blogged about previously, including on the challenge of interpreting the evidence regarding what's going on. It is worth briefly reviewing the possible consequences of taking a group of people whose household incomes, after assistance from social security, are already at poverty levels and increasing the amount they are ...
There have been two stories about Cyber-bullying in the past week or so. The first case was when feminists on Twitter had been threatened with rape for having the temerity [...]
[IMG: House of Lords chamber] By surrendering the principle of proportionality we surrender part of ourselves The Coalition Agreement stated that "Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election". It is therefore difficult to justify why UKIP, having secured over 3% of the vote at the last General Election and only currently having 3 of the over 500 Peers aligned to a political Party, has not been given the opportunity to have ennobled a cohort of ...
'Who the fuck cares what it looks like from the inside? Slavery, suffrage, civil rights, Vietnam, what all those things have in common is there were leaders. The only thing leaders cared about was getting it done. If you guys had leaders then you'll find a man with a fucking map that'll tell you the thing about Capitalism is that it is politically accountable.' The words of Will McAvoy, ACN Anchor when speaking to Occupy Wall Street movement member Shelley in this weeks episode of The Newsroom on HBO. Now what do the words of a fictional character of a ...
Apologies for this being a bit later than usual. 131424: Change of use from restaurant to bar/cafe and hot food takeaway, Red Lion Yard. 131508: Replacement of windows, Colchester Sixth Form College. 131524: Advertisement consent for facia signage, Culver Square. 131544: Erection of brick built shed, Lexden Road. 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 Frame and Jo Hayes. Related PostsCastle Ward planning applications, up to 17th May ...
I wrote on a forum a couple of weeks ago, when the first rumours about Peter Capaldi becoming the Doctor that "I'd love it to be Capaldi, but I don't think we live in an awesome enough universe for that to happen." Obviously, I was wrong and the universe remains an awesome and wonderful place where things like that can happen. Obviously, I'm excited that he's going to be playing the Doctor and not just because it means that the actor playing the Doctor is older than me again. I only discovered recently just how much of a fan of ...
At York Snaresbrook Crown Court, the judge described a 13 year old girl as "predatory", despite the fact that a 41 year old man had just pleaded guilty to abusing her. Neil Wilson, who admitted watching his victim strip naked and then getting her to perform a sex act on him, was able to walk free [...]
While we were in New York City, we went to see Nathan Sawaya's The Art of The Brick. The artist uses Lego as his medium, and the art he produces is breathtaking. [IMG: 2013-07-24 16.30.40-2] The mixture of 2D and 3D is incredible. [IMG: 2013-07-24 16.15.48-1] But there are aspects of the exhibition which left me with questions about the nature of art and creativeness. Take, for example, these statues (click to embiggen). [IMG: 2013-07-24 16.22.40] They are magnificent to behold, and they are stunning "in the flesh", yet - to me - they seem like slavish copies. Perhaps it's ...
[IMG: Parents and child - Some rights reserved by Ed Yourton] The Daily Mail still doesn't 'get' the Liberal Democrats, although many of us take that as evidence that we must be doing something right. According to the headline today Clegg tells new dads they must take a month off or get nothing: Deputy PM wants to follow Scandinavia's lead to make sure fathers play a bigger role in childcare, Nick Clegg and the party have apparently already adopted a policy that is to be debated in Glasgow next month. So this presents us with another opportunity to explain how ...
Originally posted on LibDemVoice here: Coalition has exposed and accentuated the differences between two powerbases within the party: the leadership and it's governing committees. And though both are elected, it feels to me as an ordinary member that I have no chance of influencing either. I stand outside both at the moment, I'm not in the leadership and I don't contribute to the Federal Policy Committee, Federal Conference Committee or Federal Executive, nor would I stand a chance of being elected as I'm not well known enough. I'm a board member for Liberal Reform, campaigning for reform within the party, ...
Please help give bisexual visibility a boost from your armchair by voting for me in this year's Homo Hero awards! The shortlists for the annual awards have been revealed, and I'm delighted to have been shortlisted for LGB Role Model of the Year. It was all a bit of a surprise really, I knew one person had put in a nomination for me but didn't think it would go anywhere. Why me? Well, y'know, I've done a thing or three for the bis. Editing a print magazine for over ten years, running a regular local social-support group for over fifteen ...
The Lib Dems have published the agenda for our autumn conference — I've uploaded it to read at the foot of this post. It's a pretty meaty agenda, too, with big issues up for debate. This, after all, is the penultimate autumn conference before the 2015 general election, which means it's important for determining what makes it into the party's manifesto. I've skim-read the agenda this morning. It seems it can be read in alternative ways. My main impression was "How different is this to what a Conservative agenda would look like?" I don't just mean that Lib Dem conferences ...
After last year's Liberal Democrat Conference I suggested that it was time to freshen up the Blog of the Year awards. Yesterday Liberal Democrat Voice invited nominations for this year's awards and it seems they agree. The award for the Lib Dem blog post of the year has been restored and there is a new one for the best tweeter or Facebooker. Those are two changes I suggested last year. But I am sorry to see the award for the best new Lib Dem blog has been dropped. I realise blogging is not the cutting-edge activity it once was, but ...
[IMG: fish] Sunday's Observer features two related stories (Revealed: how water firms are polluting our rivers and beaches and Ministers putting seas and marine life in peril) which suggest that the coalition does not plan anything more than a minimal response to major environmental problems and opportunities. There is an opportunity for this government to act on ready-made recommendations from the sentencing council, from select committees and from a representative group of environmentalists and fishing industry interests. The "greenest government ever" seems likely to deliver either nothing at all or a merely pathetic set of proposals. The first issue is ...
The novelist John Lanchester has built up a formidable knowledge of banking for a non-banker and is wielding the results regularly in the London Review of Books, which I have just started reading and very much enjoying (thank you, Jonathan!). In fact, his latest article 'Let's consider Kate' succeeded in changing my mind completely about bank regulation. I had become so focused on the way that the investment banks are corroding the real economy that I had come to believe that regulation was an irrelevance, compared to building an effective local banking system. Lanchester remains focused on the threat of ...
lib dem voice botties are GO If you're a member of the party do sign up for the ldv forums so you can vote. I wouldn't bother actually posting on the forum because it's a terrifying place, but you can sign up and not post ;) This means you also get to take part in Stephen Tall's regular exciting surveys... (tags: ) This looks official: https://t.co/IOOZqbGuof and I approve of it because @SawbonesHex gets 4 clips & all the other doctors get 3 :) (tags: (from twitter) ) http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?short=ffURLr @Yorkshire_Daily hopefully this should work http://t.co/9sDiEqZRKp (tags: (from twitter) ) ...
According to reports, the new Prince George of Cambridge is worth around £20million already, if you take the wealth of his parents into account. A stark contrast to other babies born on the same day as him last week. Whilst...Read more ›
[IMG: ldv coalition lessons] LibDemVoice is running a daily feature, 'Lessons of Coalition', to assess the major do's and don'ts learned from our experience of the first 3 years in government. Reader contributions are welcome, either as comments or posts. The word limit is no more than 450 words, and please focus on just one lesson you think the party needs to learn. Simply email your submission to voice@libdemvoice.org. Today Robin McGhee, co-treasurer of Liberal Youth, shares his thoughts. We should organise ministers better When entering coalition, Nick Clegg decided to spread out his party's influence across government so that ...
Tackling youth unemployment is one of our top priorities. On Tuesday Nick was in Salford to announce an extra £50m in funding the for youth contract, a scheme which provides a simple cash incentive for businesses to take on young people. This is making a real difference, with 4,000 young people a month now starting work because of the scheme. That's 4,000 young people who are able to get on in life thanks to the Lib Dems being in Government. But there are still thousands of young people out there who could benefit from an apprenticeship, and we need your ...
To read John Cole's original letter to Vince Cable please click here. Here is Dr Cable's reply: House of Commons, London, SW1A OAA 26th July, 2013. Dear Mr Cole , Thank you for your thoughtful letter. I must have explained myself badly. My thoughts on Keynes et al were more coherently and carefully set out in my New Salesman article of March 6th 2013. Of course there is a role for government in stimulating economic activity as Keynes would have argued (borrowing for public investment). But the fundamental difference from the Keynesian framework is that we have a barter (sic)* ...
I appreciate the irony of the fact that race recaps are my absolute favorite thing to read on other peoples' blogs, but that I'm absolutely terrible about posting them on my own. And, it's especially ironic that the races I feel most passionately about are the ones that I haven't recapped: it's as though they're intensely personal experiences that I want to keep close and am reluctant to share with the world. BUT, I promise that I will try to go back over a few of the big races from the first seven (SEVEN!?!) months of the year, if only ...
As residents are aware, I have, over many weeks, been calling for Dundee City Council to rethink its decision to restrict what can and cannot be recycled at the Riverside Civic Amenity Centre. As reported in yesterday's Courier, I have strongly backed concerns raised by West End Community Council Chair Andrew McBride about the city's waste policy and recycling arrangements. Andrew is spot on in his criticisms of the recycling arrangements. The decision to restrict recycling at Riverside must be reviewed. It is plain daft to have people having to drive right across the city to recycle certain items and ...
The BBC reports on concerns by Business Secretary, Vince Cable that there is "some exploitation" of staff on zero hour contracts which give no guarantees of shifts or work patterns. He was speaking after the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found up to 4% of the UK workforce were on such contracts following a survey of 1,000 firms: "I think at one end of the market there is some exploitation taking place," said Mr Cable. However, he pointed out that in many cases the level of flexibility offered by the contracts suited employees. "It can work for the worker ...
LasT week I was back on LBC for my regular radio phone in show 'Call Clegg'. I really enjoy doing it, and like the many town hall meetings I also do, it's a great way to speak directly to the public. Our party has always led the way in finding new ways to communicate with people. I'm constantly looking at different means to bring our politics alive beyond the stale rituals of the Westminster village. LBC's listener numbers have increased by almost a third since I started. I'd like to think I played a small part in this, but co-host ...
