Apologies for my utter inability to get anything written for the last couple of weeks, but I've been horribly ill for coming up to three weeks now — first with the flu, then with a recurrence of my fatigue symptoms, and now with stress-related stuff. Should be back to writing soon. Meanwhile, have links: Private [...]
At Southwark Crown Court today, Derek Osbourne - former Lib Dem leader of Kingston Council - pleaded guilty to 17 charges of making and possessing indecent images of children. He had in total more than 5,000 images - some involving children as young as three. The Surrey Comet reports that he faces up to five years in jail.
"What, in the end, is so marvellous about 'hardworking people'?" asks Glen Newey on the London Review of Books blog. Sam Freedman explains why he no longer believes schools in the state sector should be run for profit. Frank Furedi defends privacy on Spiked: "The separation of the public and private spheres has been essential for the emergence of the modern individual. People's aspiration to autonomy and identity cannot be entirely resolved in the public sphere. The private sphere not only provides a potential space for reflection, but also for the development of personality. Intimate relationships require privacy if they ...
Under legislation piloted by Liberal Democrat minister for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, companies will for the first time be subject to a legally binding vote on pay policies. From today, shareholders will finally have the power to link pay of directors to their performance, instead of merely registering protests through advisory votes on remuneration reports. More on the application of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act here.
My colleague Andy Boddington has already (rightly) laid into the Daily Mail for its gratuitous insults against Ed Miliband's father, Marxist historian Ralph. The paper has form when it comes to smearing the families of party leaders. Let's turn back the pages of history to... well, 10 days ago when the Mail tried to link Nick Clegg to fascism through his father-in-law: [IMG: clegg father in law daily mail - sept 2013] Or we could roll back to December 2012 when the Mail splash on a desperately thin story implying some form of scandalous link between Miriam González Durántez's support ...
I've written before about the allegations of selection meeting packing in Haringey involving Labour's Head of Press, Peter Morton. The London Labour Party are investigating those – and it must be a busy time for investigations as they're now also investigating allegations from Greenwich: Allegations of bullying against Greenwich Council leader Chris Roberts made on this website are being investigated by the London Labour Party, it's emerged tonight. Roberts left a voicemail message for one of his cabinet members threatening to sack them for suggesting a decision about the staging of half-marathon Run To The Beat be taken by whatever ...
Stockport Council is providing £3 million of support for the Local Lend a Hand scheme, of which £2m has now been deposited with Lloyds Bank as part of the first phase. This scheme will support people to buy their own home and inject a little bit of new life into the local property market. The Local Lend a Hand scheme works through lenders who undertake the normal credit reference checks, but provides a 95% mortgage (5% deposit from the purchaser), based on lending rates they would normally offer on a 75% mortgage. Marc Page, Mortgage Director, at Lloyds TSB, said: ...
So with Theresa May pledging to scrap the Human Rights Act and pull Europe out of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) she has suddenly become the DUP's pin up girl (whether in kitten heels or bejeweled loafers). Why? Well the DUP know that they can only go so long in using petitions of concern to block any further LGBT equality in Northern Ireland. Before too long somebody is going to take a case before the ECHR to be allowed to give blood, or to be able to adopt along with their partner of the same sex or heaven ...
Perhaps not the most exciting topic, but the Council is consulting residents on the location of polling stations: where you go to vote. Depending on where you live in Cheadle and Gatley, you vote at Trinity Church, The Kingsway School (Broadway or Foxland campus), Gatley Primary School, the bowling green at Gatley Rec or a potacabin placed on Cambridge Road next to Gatley Station. This is about whether you think the polling stations are in the right place, any other issues with those polling stations and whether the boundaries of the polling districts are right. It's not about which ward ...
[IMG: Geoffrey Levy on Milibands Dad] Once again the Daily Mail has disgraced itself and the journalistic profession. In an article headlined "The man who hated Britain", the newspaper attacked Miliband father, a man who fled the Nazis to arrive here as refugee. Ralph Miliband quickly came to love this country and he fought for it in the Second World War. But in common with many of his era, he was attracted to Marxism. His left leaning and his youthful comments were enough for Geoffrey Levy of the Daily Mail to launch one of the most unpleasant character assassinations in ...
The Friends of Churchtown Library (FoCL) have published their latest newsletter. If you would like to join the Friends of Churchtown Library, please email me - Cllr Nigel Ashton, Acting Chair of FoCL, and I will pass your name on to our Secretary. The Friends of Churchtown Library are holding a public meeting to establish what sort of library service the community want after Sefton Council closes Churchtown Library. The meeting is open to everyone and is on Thursday 10th October at 7:30 pm at St Cuthbert's Church Hall, Botanic Road, Churchtown.
LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVES COMBINE TO VOTE THROUGH LIVERPOOL CITY REGION 'COMBINED AUTHORITY' PLAN OVER LIB DEM OPPOSITIONLast Friday, 27th September, saw Sefton Council holding an Extraordinary Council Meeting to discuss a move to give powers over transport and economic development to a new Liverpool City Region 'Combined Authority'. At the end of the meeting at Bootle Town Hall, Labour and Conservative councillors voted by a majority of 40 to 13 to support the proposal despite Lib Dem opposition. Details of the proposal are here: During the meeting a Lib Dem amendment, voicing concerns over inadequate arrangements for scrutiny and ...
We are now told that they will be restarting this project on 3 October.
This morning journos were scoffing at the David Cameron not knowing the price of a loaf of bread. This followed the Prime Minister's startling revelation, "I don't buy the value stuff. I have a breadmaker at home." How very puerile, I thought – does anyone really expect the Tory leader to know the answer? And if he does will it show anything other than that he's memorised the party briefing 'Things you're expected to know about how the little people live their lives'? But then I realised Twitter's not much interested in moral relativism, so I decided to join in ...
The former Leader of Lib Dem held Kingston Council, Derek Osbourne, appeared today at Southwark Crown Court, charged with 17 counts of possessing and distributing indecent images of children. He pleaded guilty to them all. Cllr Liz Green, the current Council Leader, made this statement: Colleagues and acquaintances have expressed shock and sadness to me about Derek, who was held in high esteem by many of us across the political divide. The news of his arrest for serious sex charges back in June came as a bolt out of the blue to all of us. The police have said that ...
[IMG: black history month] I was delighted by Nick Clegg's excellent statement welcoming the start of Black History Month. As he says, this is an important aspect of British history whatever our background. Black History Month exists because black history has long been overlooked. Large swathes of social history, the story of the working class and women battling for rights, have also been relatively absent from standard history taught in schools. The two strands are often intertwined. The great abolitionist Thomas Clarkson led a grassroots movement against slavery in tandem with the likes of slave-turned-abolitionist Oladuah Equiano, whose writings helped ...
There are some free PCs available for voluntary organisations in Liverpool. They were used by the City Council but aren't needed now. They are working and loaded with relevant software and so could be a great bonus for a charity or faith group that can put them to use. There's no maintenance package with them, so organisations getting one would need to deal with anything like this themselves. Even so though this sounds like a bargain. If you want to find out more and apply for a free computer (or more than one) for your organisation you can find out ...
After writing one post comparing (or rather contrasting) the electoral prospects of UKIP and the Green Party, another contrast occurred to me: how they relate to the parties they are in competition with. Trying to suggest an alternative to Greens' current electorally unsuccessful path Neal Lawson proposes the following: You are in an amazing position, but [...]
I have a few TV passions. I like Masterchef Australia (although season five so far has been very disappointing with the standard of contestant being way down on previous years). I like The Newsroom. I liked StormChasers when it was on and one of my other big loves is Deadliest Catch. I don't fish and have no desire to ever do so but watching these crabbers go about their business in often treacherous conditions is fascinating and I'm not alone. Constantly Deadliest Catch has reigned supreme for the Discovery channel and despite no official confirmation of it being renewed, it ...
Get the SLF membership forms out Linda. A Senior member of the current cabinet has come out today and told C4 'He sees himself as a "social liberal, small l" and cited his strong support for equal marriage and gay rights" So which member of the cabinet do you think it is? Vince? No Ed? No Michael? No Nick or Danny? Deary me, no... So who is the social liberal interloper in the cabinet nest? Step forward this man.
There was a delightful story in the Guardian yesterday about how a church bell tower was used by a village to set up their own broadband network. It was 4am on Thursday when Paull Taylor turned on BBC News to be greeted with a BT spokesman making grand promises about superfastbroadband in rural areas. The telecoms man was insisting his firm had not "exploited" £1.2bn of public funds - an accusation made by the Public Accounts Committee this week - and promising that most country-dwelling Britons would receive 2MB broadband by 2015. Despite the early hour, the 20-year-old electrician was ...
Update from Cllr Flick Rea: Chair LGA Culture, Tourism and Sport Board This is the start of a new LGA year and I am the current Chair of the LGA's Culture Tourism and Sport Board. This is, like all the LGA's Boards, cross-party and my Lib Dem colleague on the Board is Mike Bell (North [...]
As I posted the other day, I'm doing the Seven Lakes Challenge, in aid of The Survivor's Trust. I did 70 lengths today, and my card is no longer empty: [IMG: First day's total for swimming challenge] I would be very grateful if you could sponsor me; the Just Giving page is here. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, it means a lot. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Paterson in Carrier Bag] Putting an acknowledged environmental sceptic in charge of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was always going to be bad news. Shropshire MP Owen Paterson's sympathies lie with industrial scale farming and fracked landscapes. He hates windfarms and is a global warming sceptic. Now he's trying to restrict the scope of the carrier bag charge. It's no surprise then that he is reluctant to introduce a charge on supermarket carrier bags. Previously, Defra sat on its heels. Its ministers claimed it needed better evidence about the impact of a charge. That's an ironic ...
The Times reports that the Labour Party has reacted angrily to a republished article in the Daily Mail on Ed Miliband's father entitled "the man who hated Britain". They said that the Saturday edition had examined the political beliefs of Ralph Miliband, a Marxist academic, and how that had influenced his sons. The Labour leader himself has written in today's edition of the newspaper, accusing it of smearing his father: The Labour leader tweeted to express his anger about the piece and revealed that the newspaper had agreed to publish his response. However, it also reprinted the original piece with ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Might some of the welfare changes be a little more helpful to people than Osborne made out? Interesting by @caronlindsay: look beyond Osbo rhetoric, some changes maybe more helpful than he wants them to seem http://bit.ly/15GrEIj From the Vault: Arsène Wenger joins Arsenal in 1996 and bans Mars bars | Sport | theguardian.com Fact I didn't know > "no English manger has won the Premier League since its inception in 1992" http://bit.ly/170Qa1T Baking bad: David Cameron's sordid breadmaking revelation | From the Guardian | theguardian.com One of those Guardian articles which falls ...
At 2pm GMT on Tuesday an actor will re-enact Harold Wilson's historic speech at the Labour Party conference in Scarborough 50 years ago today, culminating in his now famous 'white heat' of technology rallying cry On 1 October 1963, the Labour leader Harold Wilson delivered one of the most famous speeches of the 20th century. Addressing the Labour Party conference, he called for a new Britain to be forged in the "white heat" of a technological and scientific revolution. His words captured the mood of Britain in the 1960s and Labour went on to win the general election in 1964, ...
In our debate this week, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling for an end to internet and mobile 'not spots' in Wales. Wales currently has the largest proportion of premises in potential not-spots and the lowest availability of superfast broadband services. In the past, the Welsh Government's broadband schemes have proven to be inadequate for businesses due to the slow speed of the broadband provided. The Welsh Liberal Democrats are calling on the Welsh Government to examine the support that can be offered to businesses to improve their ability to compete worldwide through better access to digital services. The Welsh ...
[IMG: power trip] The effects of Damian McBride's book on the next election will be negligible. The vast majority of voters simply don't care. And to those who do, the vicious way members of the Labour government conducted themselves, and the reckless aggression of their spin doctors and advisers, are hardly news. The general picture was well known before 2010: indeed, Armando Iannucci and Peter Capaldi had been portraying it on screen for five years by then. McBride has added details, but any vote that might have been influenced by it, already has been. So it won't change anything on ...
[IMG: Dipping] There has been a spate of pickpocketing ('dipping') in central St Albans and in local supermarkets. Please beware and follow police advice.
I wrote an article published in PC Pro which explained why the technical approach to content filtering is one which should cause concern. The essence of the article is that it is wrong to have a centralised database which records everyone's content preferences and that this information should be stored in the domestic router (as some routers do). As it currently stands the four largest ISP's
[IMG: IMG_0107] Local residents will be intrigued to know that Beaumont Avenue has a different weather system from the rest of the district. Work was due to start on the badly damaged pavement towards the top end of the road but suddenly didn't happen. When Chris and residents contacted the county council to see what was up they were told that work could not commence because of the problems caused by rainfall. Those of us in the rest of St Albans will have noted that the last fortnight has been exceptionally dry. So either Beaumont Avenue is a meteorological singularity ...
[IMG: black history month] Black History Month reminds us that remembering the past is about more than just memorising important dates and facts. It's about recognising and understanding the kaleidoscopic mix of people, events and influences that have shaped the country we live in and make us who we are. Over the last 26 years, Black History Month has helped to inform and educate men, women and children across Britain, highlighting and celebrating the powerful contribution of African and Caribbean people in every area of British society, across centuries of our history. Black History Month is built around the belief ...
Very, if you are the county council. Chris first reported residents' concerns about a noisy drain cover in Camp Road in June but was fobbed off by the county council and their controversial contractor Ringway. After a steaming email sent over the weekend to the county council's senior management, the work has finally been done. Chris said: 'I shouldn't have to send nasty emails to get a simple job done.' There were similar delays earlier in the year in relation to a drain cover in Hart Road.
Six months in the making, 2 goats, 7 chicks, 2 bee swarms, 5 ducklings and 2 polytunnels later, and the BBC1 programme about me and self-sufficiency was broadcast last night. I wasn't allowed to see the programme before it was broadcast so I wasn't sure what footage they would use. However, the result was good and I very soon afterwards got messages from local residents saying they liked the
This is a cross-posting from the Creeting St Peter Journal... What makes a village community is the people who work to make it a better place. Parish councillors, community activists, church volunteers, all of them take an interest in their village and, hopefully, help to create a lively, more inclusive, atmosphere. St Peter's, Creeting St Peter As a relative newcomer to the village, I have been particularly impressed by the work of the Parochial Church Council, currently led by Alice Matthewson, whose attempts to maintain the fabric of our parish church, the only community building in the village, have led ...
Blackfish is the story of Tilikum, a killer killer whale. He has killed two of his trainers at Seaworld and possibly also an intruder into his pool. Killer Whales are awesome predators. They are massive: Tilikum weighs half a tonne and his dorsal fin alone is the size of a grown man. Any creature that [...]
Here are the five posts published on this blog between July and September 2013 that recorded the most hits: Bedroom tax ... and beyond (6th Aug) Why is Owen Jones so annoying? (4th July) Free to schmooze (21st July) 'Quackademics' under fire as critical voices targeted (22nd Aug) Britain's property problem (15th Aug) One thing that can be inferred from this list is that September was a relatively quiet month. Nothing quite took off. One notable feature of this quarter is that Uncertain Terrain: issues and challenges facing housing associations, which was published on 11th May, was only a handful ...
Today marks the start of Black History Month in the UK. A month dedicated to a time when we as a community can celebrate and reflect on the contributions of [...]
The focus of British politics is now clear. The prospects of the different parties at the General Election due in May 2015 dominates everything. No doubt it is with relief that the political elite and their coterie of journalists and commentators focus on this question, rather than the much more difficult one of how to make this country a better place for its citizens. The defining event of this year's conference season so far has been Labour leader Ed Miliband's speech. For good or ill, he seems to have set the political agenda. But does this tell us anything about ...
Have you noticed that the word 'modernisation' is slowly disappearing from the political lexicon. At roughly the same speed as Tony Blair. Why? Because people don't believe it any more. It became a weasel word. If you heard any service was being 'modernised', it usually meant 'streamlined', which took the humanity and usually also the effectiveness out of it. Nobody, except maybe the dinosaurs at McKinsey, believe in that kind of modernisation any more. The last thing anybody wants of any institution they use is that it should be 'modernised' in that sense. Why would you, when modernised has come ...
So I'm at the cooker making dinner last night at an unfashionably late 10.30 and I sent this tweet to Newsnight and I got this straight back Now that's what I call service :-)
Tue 1st
09:18
Accepting Sexuality Annual Lecture: "Political Correctness gone mad or a Gospel imperative—cha...
Accepting Sexuality's annual lecture is on Friday 18 October 2013 at 8pm, at Belfast South Methodist Church, 238 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 6GF. The title is "Political Correctness gone mad or a Gospel imperative—changing attitudes in the Church and the world" and the speaker is Ruby Beech, Vice-President of the British Methodist Conference 2007-2008. For more information, please contact asgroup@btinternet.com. [...]
[IMG: stunnell and smart] Andrew Stunell has announced that in 2015 he will be retiring as the MP for Hazel Grove, where he was first elected in 1997. Andrew, who was knighted in this summer's Birthday Honours, has held several roles within the Parliamentary party, including Chief Whip, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and more recently as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the Coalition. Before entering Parliament he had a wealth of experience in local government, serving as a councillor for many years, as an officer at the Association of ...
My 10th Whipped column for Ad Lib magazine. Regular readers will know how that I have long coveted the Chief Whip's job. Sitting there telling other people how to vote? I I would be good at that. At least I thought so. After Glasgow I am not so sure... ****** The Chief Whip had been ringing and texting a certain Liberal Democrat MP without success. "Get him in the hall for lines 53 to 55," he snarled. "I don't care how you do it, just get him in there." So I rushed around the conference centre until I spotted a ...
Simon Chadwick Tomorrow lunchtime, ancient music specialist Simon Chadwick will be presenting a musical tour of Northern Europe. Playing a strange rustic bowed-lyre with only 2 horsehair strings, Simon will transport listeners across the old North from Finland, via Shetland, to Iceland, calling at various other places in between. These wavering, distant folk tunes are drawn from historical oral traditions and rare books, and their repetitive mesmeric sounds evoke the times when the Vikings travelled between Scandinavia and Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and beyond. This half-hour concert will be held upstairs in the Central Library. The concert is on Wednesday 2nd ...
MEPs voted last week to approve the EU's new science programme, Horizon 2020, which will invest almost £60 billion in research and innovation over the next seven years. This is an exciting time for the research community and for businesses up and down the country. Liberal Democrats have ensured that over £2.3 billion will be allocated to small innovative businesses, which provide the key to creating new skilled jobs and rebalancing the economy. We also pushed for simpler rules to reduce administrative costs and make it easier for smaller firms to apply for funding. Britain's world-beating universities and research centres ...
Tue 1st
00:30
South Cambridgeshire District Council/ Parish Council Liaison Meeting (1st October 2013) ** TONIGHT ...
Tonight is the liaison meeting between your local Parish Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council. The agenda is available here, via Google Drive and I've copied most of it below. If you have something you'd like to see raised then please let me know as I'll be attending on behalf of Bar Hill Parish Council. South Cambridgeshire District Council and Parish Councils Liaison Meeting 6.45pm-8pm, Tuesday 01 October 2013 Council Chamber, South Cambridgeshire Hall, Cambourne Business Park, Cambourne, Cambridge, CB23 6EA AGENDA 1. Welcome by Councillor Ray Manning, Leader of the Council 2. Parish Precept 3. Housing Delivery 4. Enforcement ...
