If you have been following my blog for some time you will know that I have taken delight in exposing a number of scams, and in warning readers about them. One long running one started in February 2011 with this blog post: "Crime Prevention UK" scam. In brief, an unsolicited phone call starts by raising anxiety levels about local crime rates, then offers a free burglar alarm. If that sounds too good to be true, it is; the 'customer' is charged a massive annual monitoring charge for the alarm. Salespeople are very pushy and persuasive, and they seem to target ...
Michelle Penney from Positive Life, Northern Ireland's only HIV-specific charity explains why volunteering with the charity is so important to them.
Although I live in Belfast, I am in contact with a Positive Catholics, a peer-support network of women and men, who are living with HIV and have a Christian faith. Within the Roman Catholic tradition they offer peer ministry of support and fellowship for each other. All who identify as Christian and living with HIV...
Still not dead. Diet going reasonably well (see sidebar) although I am having to resort to things like creme fraiche instead of cream and similar. I had strawberries and creme fraiche at work yesterday and Brendan asked me how it was; I explained that it was like having a wank because you can't go to the orgy, in that it scratches the itch but is just not the same. The pain in my abdominal region isn't gone but it is reduced, so the diet is having the desired effect. Am coping reasonably well with doing armpits for August, although I ...
A working group, appointed by the Liberal Democrats' Federal Executive (FE), has produced a consultation paper 'Spring Federal Conference: Cost-Neutral Options for the future' [pdf], which includes the option of curtailing or even abolishing the party's spring conference. I should say at the outset that, even though I'm a member of the party's Federal Conference Committee (FCC), which organises the conference, I have had no inkling of these proposals until now because the working group has not presented its views to the FCC. We will have to comment in the same way as every other party member has a right ...
I have blogged several times about the Rutland Three - the councillors, now members of UKIP, threatened with legal action first by Rutland County Council and latterly by its chief executive (indemnified by the council). From over the Leicestershire border it is hard to know the precise wrongs of this affair, and I have talked to a former employee of the council who said that one of the Three is not (how shall I put it?) always the easiest person to deal with. But my doubts about the three paled after reading a report in the Rutland & Stamford Mercury. ...
At last the Liberal Democrat leader has spoken out on David Miranda's detention and the destruction of the Guardian's computers. An article by him has appeared on the Guardian website and will be in tomorrow's paper: So a balance must be struck between a libertarian "anything goes" approach, which sees new technology as a way to escape from the reach of the law, and an authoritarian view that sees technology as a new opportunity to intrude into our lives. Technology will continue to evolve and governments worldwide will try to evolve with it. As long as Liberal Democrats are in ...
I was very surprised at how small the crowd was for the England Australia women's one day game at Hove. Five pounds a ticket for a day's really good cricket. For anyone who is free on Sunday I suggest it will be a very good investment. All these empty seats are people missing a treat today. Excellent cricket all round and an England win, which added spice to it. The series is level now, so all to play for. England batting solidly, ending on 256. The highest score was Charlotte Edwards 53. Several batters made decent scores but none pushed ...
Richard Kemp looks at the problems of being a young councillor - and of being Jake Morrison in particular. As Armenia moves closer to the EU, Russia is taking advantage of the country's economic and geopolitical vulnerabilities to maintain its influence says Hayk Hovhannisyan on LSE EUROPP. Freaky Trigger looks at some of the wonderful books of the disgraced children's writer William Mayne. "There's a telling scene in one of Graeme Swann's entertaining video diaries from the 2010-11 Ashes tour when on Christmas Day the single members of the side sit around a table for their festive turkey. Swann's wife ...
We're always working on one of the biggest issues in the area: the Kingsway/Gatley Road junction. Here's an update on a few aspects. Background We all know the junction. The problem is that it was built 50 years ago and it's simply too small for the amount of traffic using it. There's no changes to the lights that will make a massive difference – because the road space is used pretty much all the time, and change that makes life easier for some drivers creates longer queues for others. We're working on making what improvements we can to the junction, ...
I am glad there has been a decision to suspend the introduction of car parking charges in Mytholmroyd. Councillor Tony Hodgins has done a fantastic job in spearheading this campaign. Personally my mind was changed on parking charges following a recent visit to flood hit areas in the Upper Valley as part of my work on the Economy and Environment scrutiny panel. We heard with out own ears how businesses were still a year on from the floods struggling, and a year on from having supported the charges I found I couldn't any longer. The suspension will give one part ...
I am really glad to be going along to Manchester Pride in the city centre this weekend. The theme of 'Acceptable in the 80s' seems particularly relevant this year. The [...]
The Obama administration's revival of the concept of science diplomacy offers enormous potential. But the intelligence establishment has previously used science diplomacy as a cover for its own ends The Obama Administration has embraced the concept of science diplomacy as a way to bridge cultural and economic gaps between the United States and the rest of the world. The director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, John P Holdren, regularly meets with his science policy counterparts from Brazil, China, India, Japan, Korea and Russia. The US State Department has sent a series of American scientists abroad ...
Fri 23rd
15:38
Lib Dems select candidates for Prittlewell & Westborough wards for the 2014 Council elections
Last night the Liberal Democrat members of Prittlewell and Westborough wards met for their regular branch meeting and chose their candidates for the 2014 Southend Council elections to be held on May 22 2014. Cllr. Mike Grimwade who has represented Prittlewell ward since 2006 was re-selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate and hopes the people of Prittlewell once more believe he is the right person to represent them. Cllr. Grimwade looks forward to keep working hard and continuing the active casework that has helped the residents of the ward get their issues solved as quickly as possible. He has recently ...
Fri 23rd
15:08Why I nominated Karen Chilvers aka @LDKatz71 aka Cllr. Sexy Boots for Councillor of the Year
I didn't nominate in every category for the BOTYs this year but along with my nominations for Blog of the Year I did ensure that I proposed a name in one of the new categories. With a new 'Councillor of the Year' award up for grabs I thought it was a good time to give Karen Chilvers a bit more recognition as to her excellent work locally both for her residents and for the Liberal Democrat party. The reason why I decided to do this wasn't just because I coined her nickname of Cllr. Sexy Boots (hint for women of ...
If Alistair Darling had ever walked into the pub when I was pulling pints, I would have thrown him out on his ear for introducing the now deceased beer escalator. Now I find myself applauding him. What he said today about High Speed 2 and transport policy was probably bad politics, but it is exceedingly good government. Darling told the Times and the Today programme that HS2 is too expensive and the money could be better spent. Hurrah! I have long argued the environmental and economic credentials of this Tonka toy project do not stack up. But he also said ...
[IMG: Nuclear no thanks] The movement against nuclear energy waits anxiously. Given Ed Davey's apparent enthusiasm for new nuclear, it is more than a little alarming to learn that a proposal to support nuclear new build has been put forward as part of the Green Growth and Green Jobs debate at Glasgow. Are Lib Dem's really willing to abandon one of the party's unique selling points? The proposal (Option B 4.3.3) asserts that nuclear power could play a limited role in achieving a zero carbon Britain - provided that concerns about safety, disposal of radioactive waste and cost, including decommissioning, ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Let the great economy spin | Anatole Kaletsky "History shows that muddling through is usually a successful solution and the odds are overwhelming against collapse" http://reut.rs/13KOhu0 Let the great economy spin | Anatole Kaletsky "civilized societies have an astonishing capacity to dodge problems instead of properly solving them" http://reut.rs/13KOiOC How Labour is preparing for a coalition with the Lib Dems .@georgeeaton on how Labour is preparing for a coalition with the Lib Dems http://bit.ly/16BZ2Nq < the pre-hung p'ment negotiations begin.. 35 years for Manning, and time for better whistleblowing laws Only way ...
I have prepared a few more blogs which are all based on the 'David Morris Reporting Back Autumn 2012' booklet. Then I realised that 2012 may not by a typo (although there are definite typos within it) as all the articles may have been written a year ago. It was just strange that I hadn't seen this booklet before, and now suddenly a stack of them were in my local shop on the newspaper shelves. It was good to get some feedback from my MP even if it may be a year out of date, but what had happened to ...
[IMG: Australian Democrats] In an island not so far away, in a time not so long ago, a socially liberal centrist party met its end under circumstances eerily similar to those the Liberal Democrats now find themselves in. The sudden demise of the Australian Democrats is a tale from the antipodes that holds several lessons for the Lib Dems. The Australian Democrats were the 3rd force in Australian politics between 1977 and 2008, frequently holding the balance of power in Australia's elected upper house and achieving election at the state and local council level. They played a lead role in ...
Next time go via Frankfurt. [IMG: Frankfurt Airport Terminal 2] photo by: flickrsven [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
This story in The Times confirms that local authorities have a tendency to be complacent about the care of children in local authority care. This was also clear in A and S v Lancs CC [2012] EWHC 1689 (Fam). The underlying problem is that it is not possible to challenge the way in which a local authority is caring for a child from outside the local authority. The Independent Reviewing Officer is
I've just heard David Nobbs, on Radio 4, restating the advertising slogan from Reginald Perrin's chain of shops called Grot: 'All objects for sale in this shop are guaranteed useless'. It is extraordinary how the modern economy thrives on making a success of the useless. The anthropologist David Graeber, who wrote an important book recently about money - challenging the mistaken claims of economists about its origin - has been writing about what he calls 'bullshit jobs'. This is what he says: "Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in ...
Three years ago I promised to convert the Voynich Manuscript into an ebook. The recent news that it may have been deciphered spurred me to finish my project. So, here it is, the world famous mystery that is the Voynich Manuscript now in convenient eBook format. PDF - suitable for Kindle, nook, Kobo, Android, iOS and for most devices (60MB) CBZ format - suitable for comic book readers, tablets, etc. (59MB) As the book is pure images, I decided not to convert to .mobi or .epub. Those are great formats, but offer nothing to picture books that can't be provided ...
[IMG: BBC not left biased] Writing at The Conversation, Cardiff University lecturer Mike Berry looks at whether the BBC is biased. He concludes, despite the regular screams of left wing bias by the right wing press, that Tories get more airtime than Labour. The BBC is not pro-EU, quite the reverse. But reportage "saw Europe almost exclusively through the prism of political infighting between Labour and the Conservatives so a rounded debate... was almost completely absent." Voices arguing for the benefits of EU membership were, says Berry, very sparse. As for the BBC being anti-business, again the opposite applies. Berry ...
The editor of the Guardian destroys computing equipment as GCHQ watch on. Who are the Luddites? Alan Rusbridger's cinematic description of how, back in July, two GCHQ security experts oversaw the destruction of hard drives in the basement of the Guardian's offices was symbolic of many things. Amnesty called it "sinister". It made me think of the Luddites. We're almost halfway through the bicentennial of the Luddite uprisings (1811-1817). Part of a wave of working class discontent emerging in the wake of the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic wars, the Luddites are best known for smashing looms and the ...
Fri 23rd
12:00
If you haven't replied to the consultation on Scotland's same sex marriage bill, DO IT NOW!
At almost the 11th hour, I have submitted my views to the Scottish Parliament's Equalities Committee which will be considering Scotland's Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill. The deadline is today, so you really need to get on with it. The "other side" will make sure that they get their point of view across so it's really important that the Committee hears from those in support. It really won't take you long to complete the forms. I had a lot of help (and credited it so on my submission) from what LGBT+ Liberal Democrats had to say. I pretty much copied ...
At almost the 11th hour, I have submitted my views to the Scottish Parliament's Equalities Committee which will be considering Scotland's Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill. The deadline is today, so you really need to get on with it. The "other side" will make sure that they get their point of view across so it's really important that the Committee hears from those in support. It really won't take you long to complete the forms. I had a lot of help (and credited it so on my submission) from what LGBT+ Liberal Democrats had to say. I pretty much copied ...
If you are concerned about this issue, especially as it affects the traders operating in the car park of the City Station, then have a look at this website.
A great new piece of messaging for the the Lib Dems except... Check out that Labour arrow. Whoops.
[IMG: Votes for cash] The Electoral Reform Society has released a paper entitled A Penny For Your Vote?, which explores the connection between politics and money. It will come as no surprise to most Liberal Democrats that the equation between cash and seats is out of kilter. But the hard numbers contained within the paper may still come as a shock. The amount of money spent winning a single vote ranges from £3.07 down to 14 pence dependent on where in the country you live. The disparity between these two figures equates to the small number being 22 times paltrier ...
Handy advice from Twitter: [IMG: Hashtag guide from Twitter]
As Despicable Me 2 has become the year's highest grossing film at the UK box office, I thought I'd share a fact about the funniest animated yellow characters since the Simpsons. FACT: the majority of the minions are voiced by the film's co-director Pierre Louis Padang Coffin. Fellow director Chris Renaud also voices another minion. [...]
This week the leaker of the US diplomatic cables to Wikileaks, US Army private Bradley Manning formally announced that she will be living the rest of her life as a woman, hopes to have hormone therapy and would like to be referred to from now on with female pronouns. Predictably, this triggered an onslaught of media attention referring to Chelsea Manning as "Bradley" and as "he". This in turn triggered an equally predictable deluge of transphobic opinion and comment pieces across print, broadcast and online media. Some of these pieces are of the "a dog isn't a cat even if ...
'A quarter of parents unable to pay for their child's school uniform.' @theinfodaily http://t.co/sZ4aWg2QAM (tags: (from twitter) ) posted The Blood is The Life 22-08-2013 http://t.co/JUoyzEFvHW on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) http://mus.ms/16hhpn6 Curator of Film and Broadcast, National Media Museum, £26,627: http://t.co/dHcZkUudPB (tags: (from twitter) ) Memex 1.1 » Blog Archive » Democracy as a 'game' scary scary (tags: ) Even little kids have a wage gap - Salon.com Depressing but not surprising (tags: ) Disembodied lady parts! Oppo ad shows sexism lives on | VentureBeat (tags: ) Will 2015 be like 1983? Cameron's polling turnaround ...
The Telegraph reports on a new initiative by the Policy Exchange think tank, who are determined to build on their idea of Police Commissioners by expanding their remit and their powers. They have called for called for a significant expansion of the commissioners' role to oversee the fire and ambulance services, prisons and probation. They also suggest that the current cap on the "police precept" should be abolished, with PCCs able to charge an extra sum to pay for alcohol and drug treatment, prison places, electronic tagging schemes and mental health care. This is not the sort of decentralisation that ...
[IMG: Wired Government smaller] The relationship between central and local government in the UK has always been strained. The UK is one of the most centralised democracies in Europe, and as we have no written constitution local government has no automatic right to exist or do anything. Everything is dependent on the decisions of ministers. The new Government in 2010 did good things in reversing some of the things the last right-wing, authoritarian and centralising government had done. The huge inspection and reporting regime was abolished. Ring fencing of budgets was mainly done away with. The Localism Act was brought ...
The most remarkable part of the Welsh Government's response to Eric Pickles latest attack on their failure to force councils to accommodate bloggers and citizen journalists is how predictable and tired it is. My experience of raising this issue in the Assembly leads to me to the same conclusion as the English Secretary of State for Communities, Welsh ministers really do believe that an interest in openness is an 'unhealthy obsession'. The BBC report that Mr. Pickles has announced that he will publish new guidance on tweeting from meetings after warning that freedom of speech and independent hyper-local journalism was ...
There are no meetings at Blyth Town Council next week. The meeting of the Events Committee which was due to be held on Tuesday 27th ( and which still appears on the council's website) has been postponed. There is, let's say , discussion and correspondence about the rearranged date , as this date clashes with a meeting about the Biomass Power Station in East Bedlington PC's area, "over the water". If and when the date is confirmed I'll post details
This is, absolutely, the last time I'm going to tell you about nominations for the Liberal Democrat Voice awards which close at midnight tonight. Don't come crying to me if your favourite doesn't make the shortlists and you haven't bothered to nominate it.... To nominate, you need to send your suggestions to caron@libdemvoice.org as soon as you can. Please also feel free to publicise the awards on your own blog or via social media. In the olden days, before I was a member of the team, I used to do posts about the bloggers I'd be nominating. If you want ...
With next Monday being the Bank Holiday, all bin collections next week are put back a day.So, if your normal "bin day" is Tuesday , next week it will be Wednesday and .... well, I'm sure you get the idea. Next week is a blue bin week ( ie Dry Recycling Waste ) Any questions please contact Northumberland County Council
This is a reminder that I welcome guest posts on Liberal England. So far 33 have appeared. And as you can see from the list of the 10 most recent guest posts below, I am happy to consider a wide range of subjects. If you would like to write a guest post for Liberal England yourself, please send me an email so we can discuss your idea. Spelling out the reason to vote Liberal Democrat - Andrew BrownTommie Smith - The man behind the image - Matt RoebuckDon't make the dull middle class go to university - Dr AnonymousHouse of ...
Another great event from the Roseangle Playpark Campaign: You can download a high-quality PDF version of this poster here.
Civil liberties. It's the issue that unites Lib Dems like no other. While you'll find a range of views within the party on big issues that matter more to the voters — such as the economy or the NHS or even tuition fees — personal freedom, the right to live your life as you choose, is at the heart of liberalism. Nick Clegg made his name within the Lib Dems as shadow home affairs spokesman by proposing measures like the Freedom Bill and threatening to go to prison rather than carry an ID card. Yet civil liberties is also the ...
It's funny how percentages are important in my life. For some time I have been trying to get my percentages up. Slowly, little by little I have regained ground from my initial high point. Today I got my latest result: 75% - major bounces. Now, I should clarify, these are the percentages in my assignments...
