I'm a bit loathed to write this one - largely because when talking about personal issues I tend to think it's a slippery slope and you only realise where you are when you're doing a Liz Jones. I also do it with trepidation because people read my blog for a whole host of different reasons - some because they live near me, some because we're in the same political party and some because they were looking for funny pictures of cats and got sidetracked an hour ago. Either way, if I do start doing a Liz and telling you far ...
Film from the inaugural service for the Leicestershire Schools Festival of Music in May 1965.
Saturday The morning's post is brought to me on the usual salver. News comes from Peking that Cumbrian lanterns are to be banned - an up and coming you member of the State Council called Tim Fal Lon had been making a terrible fuss about them and has finally got his way. I am invited to the Oakham gala opening of "Beware of Mr Baker" - a documentary about the career of the controversial transport minister and MP for Lewes. A boxing journalist wishes to interview me about my memories of that plucky welterweight, Sugar Ray Michie. I am asked ...
The Dish addresses David Cameron: "Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state." Why is the membership of political parties declining? Jennie Rigg explains. Rigged looks at the work of Ivan Illich. "Efforts to re-engineer the young-male imagination are doomed to fail, ...
[IMG: caron lindsay] LibDemVoice Co-Editor Caron Lindsay guests on the latest House of Comments, the weekly podcast presented by Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson and Labour's Emma Burnell. So if you're interested in any or all of the following topics — the state of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg's position, your favourite minister and MP, gender balance, immigration, Mark's "I won't campaign for anyone who voted for secret courts" pledge, drugs policy, and much, much more — then you robably want to give it a listen. Here's the magic link:
Baroness Barker will be the keynote speaker at the region's Autumn 2013 conference and Annual General Meting on Saturday 2 November. The event takes place at Queen Victoria Hall, West Street, Oundle PE8 4EJ. Liz Barker has been a peer since 1999 and has championed the cause of equal opportunities for years. In the past she has been President of Liberal Youth & Students, Chair of the party's Federal Conference Committee and a member of the Liberator collective. You can book a place via the East Midlands Lib Dems website, which promises some innovative ideas for your participation.
The anger and fear over teachers being forced to promote homosexuality (or at least not speak their conscience) that was expressed during the same-sex marriage debates couldn't be anything other than genuine could they? I mean if we had a case where a school (or schools) was enforcing a policy which kept a teacher from speaking their conscience, those same people would be up in arms right? The Christian Institute and Anglican Mainstream would be churning out article after article about it surely? When a teacher was investigated for refusing to say all opponents of marriage equality were homophobes, they ...
A four day festival at Stockport's Merseyway with fashion shows, markets, food and drink, live entertainment, fairground and a world record attempt. Parking in all Town Centre Council car parks free from 11am on the Saturday.
This time about the Beach Boys' Made In California box set: I pre-ordered this item months ago because I want to get it on release day. You have since changed the release date on the page to 2nd September, from 26th August, and changed the delivery date accordingly. However, other people who pre-ordered (and did [...]
What to do about social mobility? The UK has some of the worst rates of social mobility in the OECD, with little progress being made since the 1970s. What can we do to ensure kids from low-income families go on to earn more than their parents? I will be going back to my old school in Edinburgh to talk to pupils who were in my position 10 years ago; the first in their family to consider university, pursuing a career without any personal contacts in the field to help. With 1 in 5 pupils registered for Free School Meals (as ...
***Parental Advisory*** This Blogpost contains some images relating to sexual positions*** Mexican congresswoman Ana María Jiménez Ortiz must lead a very sheltered and unvaried sexual life in the bedroom. I don't think her sex life exists outside the marital bed nor in any position other than the ordinary. Which means from what female friends have told me probably means she has experienced very many, or very intense experiences. The reason I am saying this is that Ana Maria Jiménez Ortiz has come up with the following as a definition of marriage 'marriage should only be considered in those relationships in ...
The Green Party's only MP Caroline Lucas has today been arrested at an anti-fracking protest. The former leader of the Greens was arrested along with her son in Balcombe, where protests are ongoing, report the BBC. I'm not there so I don't know what Caroline Lucas was doing when she was arrested. While I know [...]
Meols Ward Lib Dem Councillors John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and David Rimmer, together with FOCUS Editor Jo Barton, are holding their next advice centre in Churchtown. We will be at Cafe Moo Moo on Cambridge Road (by the junction with Preston New Road, next to Boots) from 10:30 to 11:30 am on Thursday 22nd of August. We will be there to meet you and discuss any Council problems you may have. No appointment necessary. Just pop in. We also hold a monthly advice centre in Crossens, at St John's School, Rufford Road, Crossens every month (except August) on the second ...
Southport Fire Station is holding its annual Open Day on Saturday 24th August.
Following what I can only describe as a hilariously bad first date last week it got me thinking. Did it even rank in my top five worst dates? Well I actually laid in bed and thought about it – and thought about it a lot. I tossed and turned over what the actual worst was so I decided why not write up the list and show you all that we all have bad dates and that it doesn't really matter. So welcome to my top five worst dates but before we start we need an honourable mention for a date ...
Monday: Mr David Miranda, a passenger en route from Berlin to Brazil and not entering the UK, has been detained at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act 2000, and held for the full nine hours allowed under that Act before being released. His telephone, laptop, games console, DVDs and other electronica have been confiscated. Mr Miranda is not a terrorist suspect. This is an abuse of power. This is why Labour were wrong. We need to be abolishing these laws and Labour's Yvette Cooper needs to be apologising for her part in enacting them, not demanding answers like a victim. ...
Many residents have had an unfortunate experience when submitting or opposing a planning application. The whole system has now been reviewed and we would welcome your comments. Please see here for more information.
In February 2012, Labour controlled Liverpool City Council voted to have an elected mayor without seeking the views of the residents of Liverpool via a referendum. In May 2012, a Labour Mayor was elected. Now there is a proposal for the six local authorities in the Liverpool City Region (Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, St. Helens, Wirral and Halton) to establish a combined city region cabinet to promote economic development, transport and employment and skills in the Liverpool City Region. Whilst it is welcome for local authorities to co-operate, the mechanism of this proposal is hugely undemocratic and has completely bypassed locally ...
The directory, with fringe listings and ministerial Q&A sessions, for the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference on 14th-18th September is now available here. So plan your fringe programme today. Your particular attention is drawn to the Liberal Democrat Voice Awards at 10pm on Saturday evening. Liberal Democrat Voice Liberal Democrat Voice Awards (incorporating Blog of the Year) The BOTYs are back with new categories alongside old favourites. Join us for an evening of unrivalled glamour and fun with Nick Clegg and surprise guests as we celebrate the best of blogs, people and media. Dress: imaginative. Crowne Plaza, Castle 2 Nominations for ...
Sometimes you find a Liberal quotation in a book, a speech or a politician you know. Sometimes you find a Liberal quotation in a Dictionary of Liberal Quotations when your a-bit-too-occasional-lately series needs kick-starting. And sometimes you find a Liberal quotation in a cinema and scrabble for a bit of paper while trying not to grind too much popcorn into your pocket. That's how to go from Lord Dahrendorf to Simon Pegg on a pub crawl, finding they've got more in common than you might think. Spoilers for the movie follow later... "It is our basic human right to be ...
In the process of aiming a well targeted empirical arrow at the misogynistic tosh spouted by UKIP chairman Stuart Wheeler, Chris Dillow of Stumbling and Mumbling points out some interesting research about why women appear on average less competitive. Unsurprisingly – and disappointingly for unenlightened figures like Wheeler – this is not because there is [...]
It's August, the Westminster Bubble is mostly free of Actual News, so the commentariat turns to navel-gazing. Why, they opine, WHY is poitical party membership falling off a cliff? It's particularly plaintive this year as the Tory party is rumoured to have dropped below 100,000 members - as recently as 1990 they were over a million, down from a peak of nearly 3 million. There are a lot of comment pieces about this in the mainstream media, and most of them seem to me to miss the salient point. When one joins a poltical party, what does one get for ...
Just to be absolutely clear this is a blog that I have taken from the Liverpool Echo blog site – Dale Street News. I could not do it better and you all might think I was exaggerating if I had ... Continue reading →
I've not heard anything more about the solar farm proposal but, over dinner with a friend who has a renewable energy business, I took the opportunity to ask how many homes could be supplied with energy from an 10 MWp solar farm. His answer? About 3,650 households, or a county council division in these parts. Now, of course, there are caveats, I presume - average levels of sunshine and of downtime, probably. I'm also guessing that the payment to the farmer for the rent of his land is equivalent, or more than, the expected profit that could be made from ...
The Daily Telegraph is reporting today that David Cameron is planning for a second coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The Prime Minister has held private talks with Cabinet ministers over new Conservative Party rules which would make it easier to strike another deal. This is all very sensible. In the absolute monarchy mitigated by occasional regicide that is the Conservative Party, tighter rules to clamp down on the backbench naysayers to a coalition would be very prudent, just in case. Under the plans, backbench Tories would be consulted on the new power-sharing agreement with the final text being put to ...
A special meeting of full Council agreed to put the local plan out to public consultation. The local plan will set the agenda and constraints on house building in the borough for the next 15 years. The plan was voted through to the next stage by most Conservatives and some Independents and the Lib Dems. It was opposed by most independents, Labour and some Conservatives. The consultation
"Reasons to like the sixth doctor" vs "reasons not to like the sixth doctor" http://t.co/UGpNDKs9UE (tags: (from twitter) ) posted The Blood is The Life 18-08-2013 http://t.co/M3dPChnQey on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) A koala explains the Australian voting system http://t.co/D662GeNFAO (tags: (from twitter) ) This is beautiful RT @andrewducker: E. B. White explains why he wrote "Charlotte's Web" http://t.co/FOmm6EeSIZ (tags: (from twitter) ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
I am in Scotland, for the Edinburgh Book Festival, where I am speaking today (4pm if you can come!) and marvelling at the lengths the Scottish government are going to in order to get a yes vote to take Scotland independent next year. Not just the umpteenth centenary of the Battle of Bannockburn, but a whole year's celebration of Scottish culture and a special Scottish food year. I know this is terribly shocking of me, but I have no problem with Scottish independence. Not because I am a nationalist (nationalism is the precise opposite of Liberalism) but because I am ...
Mon 19th
08:55
Anyone younger than 28 years old has never experienced a cooler-than-average month on earth
Andrew Freedman writes (with my emphasis): [IMG: Drought. Photo (c) Jenny Rollo http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=975864] Global warming has accelerated during the past three decades, which have each been unusually warm. In fact, the most recent decade from 2001-2010 was the warmest since instrumental records began in 1850, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). While the rate of global warming has slowed in the past several years, possibly due to natural climate variability, the long-term temperature trend clearly shows that we're living on a warming planet... When you look more closely at the annual temperature record, you can see how the long-term ...
[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 Paul Walter shares his thoughts. These are less lessons and more shocks. 1. The robustness of the remaining Lib Dem members I am quite shocked, or pleasantly surprised, by the ...
I am going to suggest that Blyth Town Council fund the provision of a couple of car charging points to encourage drivers of electric cars into Blyth I was looking for costs of this, when I found that the company chargemaster plc (?) will install domestic points free of charge. Details are at:- If anyone is considering an electric car , this has to be worth it!
I have welcomed progress towards finding a replacement polling station for the residents of the Cultural Quarter and the many University of Dundee students who live on the university campus, following the closure of the former Park Place Primary School. Park Place Primary School relocated last year to the new West End Primary Schools' Campus as the newly named Victoria Park Primary School, where it is sited alongside St Joseph's Primary School and Balgay Hill Nursery School. The nursery also moved from Park Place, but it was the former primary school building in Park Place that was used for many ...
Last week, I received a number of complaints from residents who live to the immediate north of the Riverside recycling centre and composting operation about the extent of the bad smell coming from the operation. As one resident put it last Thursday: "I am appalled at the foul extremely offensive smell I was greeted with this morning on arriving home.It was the same offensive smell that greeted me on opening the back door before 8am on Monday morning of this week. It is becoming so bad am sure environmental health may agree it is detrimental to health. I am finding ...
The BBC report that a decision on a controversial shake-up of hospital services in south Wales has been delayed after NHS bosses received 53,000 public responses to plans. If the reorganisation is given the go-ahead, then fewer hospitals in the region would offer specialist services such as accident and emergency and premature baby care. The decision was due in October, but is now expected at the end of the year: Hospitals in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, the south east valleys and parts of Powys are affected by the proposals across five health boards. They involve changes to where patients can access ...
The Guardian reports on the extraordinary events at Heathrow yesterday when for almost nine hours, the UK authorities detained the partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. The paper says that David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.30am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The ...
