YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Syria dramatics aside, the Labour lead is down to 3 points again. CON 34%, LAB 37%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 12%. — Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) August 28, 2013
A local county councillor is supporting a 'Food and Farming Conference' as part of the St Albans Food and Drink Festival in November. County Councillor Chris White (St Albans Central) has allocated £400 from his locality budget to Transition St Albans (TSA). The funding will help pay for refreshments, venue hire, expenses and promotion for the conference, which will invite local farmers and residents of St Albans to mix with one another to learn about food and farming issues. At the event TSA will ask members of the public to support and form a community steering-group to partner a farmer ...
Tomorrow Parliament will consider international action in Syria. I have been adamant from the outset: any case for international action must be taken to the UN in an effort to achieve as great an international consensus as possible. And I have made certain this is taking place. We must wait until we hear from the weapons inspectors. For the past week I have been in regular discussions with the Prime Minister, with Ed Miliband and with international partners such as Vice President Biden in America. All sides agree, the murder of innocent men, women and children through the use of ...
Following on from his earlier film clip, here is Nick Clegg's email to party members: Dear member, Tomorrow Parliament will consider international action in Syria. I have been adamant from the outset: any case for international action must be taken to the UN in an effort to achieve as great an international consensus as possible. And I have made certain this is taking place. We must wait until we hear from the weapons inspectors. Ahead of tomorrow's debate, you can read the full wording of the motion we'll be laying before Parliament here. For the past week I have been ...
The new LDV members' survey focusing on Syria is now live. So if you are one of the c.1,500 registered members of the Liberal Democrat Voice forum — and any paid-up party member is welcome to join — then you now have the opportunity to make your views known. There are five questions relating to the current situation in Syria. 300 Lib Dem members have completed the survey within a couple of hours of it going live. We'll be reporting the initial results on Thursday, though the survey will stay live for a couple more days to give as many ...
Nick Clegg has just sent the following email to Liberal Democrat party members: Dear member, Tomorrow Parliament will consider international action in Syria. I have been adamant from the outset: any case for international action must be taken to the UN in an effort to achieve as great an international consensus as possible. And I have made certain this is taking place. We must wait until we hear from the weapons inspectors. Ahead of tomorrow's debate, you can read the full wording of the motion we'll be laying before Parliament here. For the past week I have been in regular ...
Child obesity as with adult obesity has felt like a rising tidy. Very hard to hold the tide back that so often lead to poor health and reduce life chances. But the U.S. despite the prevailing view we have of it all being fast food, fizzy drink etc has turned that tide. A new report from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found child obesity falling in 19 of 43 states from 2008-2011 in the poorest pre-school children. These are the children from the cohort most likely to be obese. Only three US states had an increase ...
Cambridge MP Julian Huppert has joined the fight to save the city's Arts Picturehouse after fears that it could be sold. Julian has written to the Competition Commission which is investigating the acquisition last year of the Picturehouse and 20 other cinemas across the UK by giant cinema group, Cineworld. It is feared that Cineworld could be forced to sell Cambridge's Arts Picturehouse along with other cinemas to lessen competition. Julian told David Saunders, Chief Executive of the Competition Commission that he had been contacted by a number of constituents who were concerned about the Commission's report into the issue. ...
Outline proposal for voluntary system to replace legal aid - The indemnity principle needs to be abolished, so that lawyers can act for clients who are unable to agree to pay their fees, and the lawyers can recover their costs ... Continue reading →
It is easy to see why the governments feel the need to do something about the 'alleged' use of chemical weapons on his own people by Syrian authorities. I would even go so far as to say the UN security Council could be negligent if it did nothing, but before we do anything in the way of military intervention it is worth MPs reflecting on how our intervention has been received and justified in
In part 1, I looked at where the Syrian uprising came from and argued that we should not be afraid to 'pick a side'. This time I want to review the failures of the UK's current policy (or lack of one). It's probably uncontroversial to say that most of us would have wished for the Assad regime to hold elections, release its grip on power and transition peacefully to democracy. And that as a fallback option, many of us would have been happy with a negotiated pact between the regime and the opposition, along the lines of what was more ...
Wed 28th
18:33
Chemical weapons and Syria: we need evidence-based, international justice | James Revill
The history of chemical and biological warfare is riddled with false allegations, misinformation and propaganda Given the horrific events unfolding in Syria, it is understandable that there are calls for something to be done in response to what John Kerry has rightly condemned as a "moral obscenity". Yet in circumstances where our knowledge is incomplete about what happened, who was responsible and how best to respond given the complexity of the conflict that has engulfed Syria, there is a need to exercise caution and precaution. This requires avoiding recourse to policy based on a false dichotomy between what Tony Blair ...
There have been many concerns expressed about some of the effects of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. Most notably campaign group 38 Degrees have outlined their own concerns about the effect it will have on the ability of charities and other groups to campaign on a level playing field ... Continue reading »
My MP asked constituents for comments before the Syria debate tomorrow. I responded: Dear Julian, You have expressed all my concerns. My instinct is that we should not intervene because of the difficulties of any military option, the risk of making things worse rather than better in Syria and the consequences for relations between the Islamic world and the West. The Middle East
One thing about following Ros about the place is that it can be surprisingly educational. On previous outings, I've discovered what makes a successful in-house waste disposal and recycling programme (Teignbridge), what colour plants you should use in a care home for Alzheimer's patients (red and yellow) and at what point a modern pharmaceutical plant becomes profitable (10% of capacity, if it's in Pune, India). Last Friday saw another of those trips.In Ros's new role as Chair of a sub-committee of the EU Select Committee, she is heading up an enquiry into the new Common Fisheries Policy, and I wondered ...
Stolen from Huff Post Comedy.
See my post from Sunday for the background and some photographs.
For today's 50th anniversary, a song that reverberates with the history of the struggle of African-Americans;
I live near Forbury Gardens in Reading where the Maiwand Lion statue was erected in 1886 to commemorate the loss of 280 soldiers from the 66th Royal Berkshire Regiment at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan on 27th July 1880. There is talk of a memorial for our brave soldiers who fought and have lost their lives in the current campaign in Helmand. In my opinion, when the Americans and the British leave, Karzai won't be too far behind and Mullah Omar will be reinstated as leader. In recent years we also have the experience of the war in Iraq ...
I'm back from a week off and thought I would answer some more of the comments posted as part of the council's budget consultation: Suggestion: Well, Cornwall Council, you are still charging the poorest in Cornwall 25% Council Tax (Cameron's reintroduction Poll Tax from April this year), and are still taking people to court for non-payment of this by the thousand.Wouldn't it be much better if you sorted that out for the next buget?Other councils are refusing to pass this burden on - and you must do the decent thing too. Response: I well understand the concern that this change ...
it As the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington is used to remember America's Civil Rights movement, we should also recall the United Kingdom's own Civil Rights movement. 1968 is famed as the year that across Europe, young people rose up against the prevailing orders. While these rebellions generally faded, in Northern Ireland they [...]
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most inspiring pieces of rhetoric ever. Injustice - what we more often call inequality these days - still withers. You can see it in communities throughout the country, where rich are separated from poor, and the poor lose all their aspiration, all their hope and all the possibility that their lives held when they were born. Inequality begets a lack of freedom which should concern every Liberal Democrat. Rhetoric does not do well nowadays. There are two reasons for that. The first is that rhetoric itself withers in the age of ...
Anyone who runs a home knows the difference between income and expenditure (the deficit) and money that is owed (the debt). Earlier this year David Cameron must have made a trivial mistake, as it looked like he didn't know the difference, unless of course he doesn't look after the family budget and he doesn't know the difference. Well last Wednesday's Independent told us that the national deficit has risen slightly according to the Office for National Statistics. I don't know if you are like me and can't think in trillions (I haven't bought a trillion of anything for ages) so ...
The deadline for amendments to Conference motions is 1 pm next Monday, 2nd September. This means that, all over the country, people will be emailing all their contacts trying to drum up support for their particular amendment. This can be quite a difficult process. So, I thought, why doesn't Liberal Democrat Voice try and make it a bit smoother? I have asked about in various places for details of proposed amendments going round and I'll give details of them further down. If you want to highlight one that you are working on, please post details in the comments. We'll need ...
Episode 73 of the House of Comments podcast "Miranda Rights and Wrongs" is out. This week myself and Emma Burnell freshly back from a few weeks off cover Will-gate and party funding, the arrest of David Miranda, the lobbying bill, the "bedroom tax" and votes at 16. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here. Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe. You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here. Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here: listen to 'Episode 73 - Miranda Rights and Wrongs' on ...
It seems that the UK and the US seem hell bent on 'climbing the mountain of conflict' and this worries me. I am sure every sane person will be condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria. I am also sure that all sane people condemn the rebel commander who cut out the heart of a fallen government soldier and ate it in front of a cheering crowd and for me this is my starting point. People are trying to create a narrative of goodies and baddies but, in fact, the Syrian civil war is not that simplistic and it ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Syria: what do Liberal Democrats want? Thoughtful analysis from @caronmlindsay > Syria: what do Liberal Democrats want? http://bit.ly/152A8Ud BBC Sport – Yeovil 3-3 Birmingham (2-3 pens) I like this. "Yeovil let Birmingham walk in a goal unopposed to make amends for their own "unsporting" equaliser" http://bbc.in/15g5Y5P Pocket Watch - Postscript to another busy exam results season | The Pearson Think Tank Interesting analysis from @PearsonThinkTk's Pocket Watch - Postscript to another busy exam results season http://bit.ly/15g4CrY UK Polling Report Blair's legacy: British public 2:1 against missile strikes on Syria http://bit.ly/13XlUZX (via @anthonyjwells) ...
Understanding the current position We have reached a situation where a state is committing crimes against humanity, in that it is...
It is the final brutal irony of the Iraq war: that futile hunt for phantom WMDs has paved the way for Assad to commit his WMD massacres. It seems we learn from history but only from the last piece of history: the folly of Iraq has wiped from our collective memories the lessons of Rwanda, [...]
The opinions of local residents seem to be falling on deaf ears. Gwynedd County Council seems to be missing in the communication loop as residents and councillors concerns over licensing [...]
This week's Liberal Monday is on a Wednesday: the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most celebrated speeches of the Twentieth Century. Dr Martin Luther King Jnr's speech to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom still has tremendous power both for in itself and for its place in history - the right person, at the right time and place, with more than the right moral clarion call in its inspired oratory. The BBC marked the occasion with a tribute on Radio 4 at 9am, plus a documentary to come on BBC2 at 9 tonight. "I have a dream ...
Commenting in advance of tonight's Champion's League match at Parkhead, Shakhter Karagandy's manager, Viktor Kumykov, suggested they may again sacrifice a sheep before kick off saying: "As far as we know in Scotland the agriculture is very developed so it shouldn't be an issue to find a sheep."
There are no good options open to us. Our choices as a country are to jump from the top floor of the burning building where we currently stand or to turn and face the flames we've been fanning. I want us to take that leap - to make the effort to understand what outcome might be desirable and possible, and to work towards achieving it. While we've dithered, others have been working towards goals that should concern us: we have a stake in the outcome of this war. This is the first of three articles, inspired not just by the ...
Greener Cheadle meet-up and plant swap.
Extending marriage rights to gay couples as well as straight couples seems a long way off for those of us living in Northern Ireland. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 has been passed in Westminster for England and Wales, the Scottish Parliament is looking at it, but the politicians up in Stormont are still...
Last night Liberal Democrat Voice brought you Nick Clegg's view on Syria, which can be summarised as follows:if we stand idly by we set a very dangerous precedentthe use of chemical weapons is a repugnant crimewe will not stand idly by when chemical weapons are used in complete breach of international law Government "is not going to act outside the remit of international law"we want to stand up for the standards and norms in the civilised worldIn the last couple of days Paddy Ashdown and Sir Menzies Campbell, two of the most respected voices this country has on foreign affairs, ...
Wed 28th
11:18
The Independent View: Lost hours playing Snake - and reining in the banks on food pricing
About a decade ago I was addicted to the classic Nokia game, Snake. If I had a spare few minutes I'd be guiding my pixelated reptile around the black and white screen of my mobile phone, trying to beat my high score. It was simple, hopelessly addictive and I couldn't put it down. As I happily helped the Snake on my screen eat itself full, like most people I was blissfully unaware that something was seriously unfair with global food pricing. The rules governing how much food costs – and banks taking advantage of them - was, and still is, ...
Liberal Democrat members of parliament have the opportunity to restore some of our credibility by voting unanimously against military intervention in Syria. If that is too much to hope for then at the very least the leadership should remove the three-line whip and allow, indeed encourage, our MPs to vote according to their reasoned conclusions after hearing the debate. Eschewing military intervention does not mean the UK should stand idly by. There is plenty of opportunity to try to restrict the access of both sides (or the many sides) to weaponry and ammunition, from which, one suspects, the British arms ...
Meanwhile, persecution of the disabled continues: MS & Parkinson's Sufferers Told: 'Get To Work (via @scriptonite) http://t.co/5f7DCQT4hO (tags: (from twitter) ) The stop & search consultation is under way. Find out more here: http://t.co/21GdMRcbHp by @lincolnslawyer (tags: (from twitter) ) http://pinterest.com/pin/164803667587162708/ "Horror icons agree that bow ties are cool" http://t.co/gS5jIcNwxn (tags: (from twitter) ) posted The Blood is The Life 27-08-2013 http://t.co/JIiV31elaV on #dreamwidth (tags: (from twitter) dreamwidth ) http://pinterest.com/pin/164803667587162698/ Fake film poster for a Fifth Element that never happened http://t.co/p5B6GPKJ6o (tags: (from twitter) ) http://pinterest.com/pin/164803667587162697/ Poor Sir Lee. Oh well, he'll be back http://t.co/S0PZ7O1cmY (tags: (from ...
Last night we brought you Nick Clegg's view on Syria, which can be summarised as follows: if we stand idly by we set a very dangerous precedent the use of chemical weapons is a repugnant crime we will not stand idly by when chemical weapons are used in complete breach of international law Government "is not going to act outside the remit of international law" we want to stand up for the standards and norms in the civilised world In the last couple of days Paddy Ashdown and Sir Menzies Campbell, two of the most respected voices this country has ...
Political Values Radicalism 96.75 Socialism 81.25 Tenderness 53.125 These scores indicate that you are a progressive; this is the political profile one might associate with a university professor. It appears that you are skeptical towards religion, and have a pragmatic attitude towards humanity in general. Your attitudes towards economics appear communist, and combined with your social attitudes this creates the picture of someone who would generally be described as left-wing. To round out the picture you appear to be, political preference aside, a centrist with several strong opinions. This concludes our analysis; we hope you found your results accurate, useful, and interesting.I suspect ...
Wed 28th
09:45Farewell letter to the Spanish PM from a scientist who is packing her bags | Amaya Moro-Martí...
Last week, the astrophysicist Amaya Moro-Martín published an open letter to the Spanish prime minister, attracting a great deal of attention and generating some 2,000 comments and 75,000 Facebook likes. Here is her letter in English Dear Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Taking advantage of the summer break, and to minimise the costs of my imminent transatlantic move, I'm clearing out my office at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and I wanted to return to you a few documents that I will no longer need. First, the official certificate of having met the requirements of the Programme for the Promotion, ...
Too many young people leave education without the skills and understanding of industry that businesses need. The big increase in apprenticeships in recent years means that a lot more people are now experiencing vocational learning on the job. But there is still a problem in further education colleges, where most vocational learners still get all or the majority their training. Currently only around 11% of teaching staff at these colleges also work in their chosen profession. In certain sectors such as STEM, where industry standards and practice move fast, knowledge can quickly become out of date. This leads to a ...
Wed 28th
08:35
My column for ConHome: The Tories are going to have to choose if they want to stay in power - Ukip o...
[IMG: con home cartoon] My fifth column for ConservativeHome — The Other Side — ran yesterday. You can read it here — along with the 200+ comments, including several replies from me. It seems that mentioning Ukip in any way whatsoever is catnip to ConHome commenters. My thanks to the site's editors, Paul Goodman and Mark Wallace, for giving a Lib Dem space to provoke (constructively, I hope). British politics used to be pretty clear-cut. 'Every boy and every gal / That's born into the world alive / Is either a little Labour/ Or else a little Conservative!', to update ...
Northumberland Recovery Partnership (NRP) Recovery Centre & Oaktrees Open Day The Recovery Centre is a project offering support for those struggling with addiction, such as peer support groups, one to one counselling and employment/housing/volunteering support. Oaktrees is a non residential rehabilitation project offering a 12 week programme for those wishing to maintain abstinence from drugs/alcohol. We are holding an opening day on Friday 06/09/2013 11am - 3pm ALL WELCOME This is an opportunity to meet the staff and get an idea of what services our projects can offer. We will also be providing a range of activities such: Learn about ...
There is a potential vote for military action in Parliament tomorrow. Whilst we need to wait for full details, it appears to be "surgical strikes". This would be to take out targets which could disperse further chemical weapons. Sabre-rattling from the Syrian government says they are prepared to use "surprise measures" to protect itself, perhaps terrorism acts, however this may well be because they are now rightly frightened of outside involvement. The UN has been unfortunately lacklustre. They have waited too long to act, 2 years too long some argue, and their inspectors are trying to find evidence of chemical ...
A year ago, I was getting into my stride running the Independent Review into Barriers to Choice, wandering round the country asking everyone I met what their own experience had been. More about this in the report published back in January. But there is no doubt that 'choice' is a strange concept, when it is an end in itself. The basic problem in the NHS at least - there is a different basic problem in social care - is that choice happens despite the existing systems and institutions. It is that much harder, if you are less confident or less ...
Batty at Balgay is an event organised by Dundee City Council's countryside ranger service and takes place this coming Friday (30th August) at 8pm. Meet up at the Mills Observatory and find out more about bats! You can read more details here.
Over the August Bank Holiday weekend I visited the Black Mountains Festival in Talgarth, where a team of veteran hedgers, joined forces with a younger family member to showcase their skills and to give some tips to the Festival going public. Hedging skills are so important to farming in this part of the world, for practical reasons of animal husbandry and grazing rotation. They are also essential to the character of our landscape, which has an importance well beyond our farming community. I applaud the organisers of Talgarth Festival of the Black Mountains for showcasing this and other essential rural ...
Just so people know, I won't be posting anything on here until at least Friday, probably the weekend. I've had a constituency party exec. meeting tonight, Holly gets back home from the US tomorrow and I'll want to spend time with her, and on Thursday I've got a local party fundraiser to go to. Such [...]
Fifty years ago today, on 28th August 1963, Martin Luther King delivered what is arguably the greatest political speech ever made: "I have a dream". The text of the speech (with a link to an MP3 audio file) is here. You can watch a video of the speech here: Listen and be reminded that politics is capable of a good deal more than today's pedestrian offerings.
