Most historians agree that the Bonkers family is descended from the Norman knight Jean De Bon Coeur, who came over with the Conqueror - even if some maintain that he was obliged to return home shortly afterwards. However, recent restoration work performed on the Cerne Abbas Giant has breathed new life into the theory that the Bonkers have been in England much longer than that.
Tonight's rather mediocre rendition of "Relight My Fire" on X Factor only serves to highlight the superb original by the late, great, Dan Hartman:
Reblogged from Andrew McFarland Campbell: I think my least favourite translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is the New King James translation: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor [...]
[IMG: Lib Dems winning here] Here's the full list of selection contests in the coming month available for Lib Dems on the approved parliamentary candidates' list, together with the closing date for applications. The following seats have selections in progress and are currently advertising for candidates: Altrincham and Sale West (1st November) Bootle (1st November) Sefton Central (1st November) Spelthorne (1st November) Stratford-On-Avon (1st November) Stretford and Urmston (1st November) Brent Central (15th November) Chester (15th November) Crewe and Nantwich (15th November) South West Wiltshire (15th November) Wythenshawe and Sale East (15th November) Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (16th November) Hemsworth ...
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Barry Goldwater, Republican senator and presidential candidate Sounds fair enough I disagree. Even in pursuit of a righteous goal, moderation is still generally a virtue. Why would anybody want to only moderately do the right thing? [...]
Time for an update since my last posting: Council side of my life relatively quiet lately when compared to life when control was shared between 3 political parties. More future postings on: defeating Labour's green bin tax, libraries, successful canvassing, improvements to my ward, visits by high ranking Liberal Democrats etc Governor side of my life very busy during and since the recent OFSTED inspection - more of that in later postings Domestic side of life very busy and complicated as follows: Before we moved to Southport, some 17 years ago, we lived in my flat in Southport with our ...
Saturday: Age: 965 Stories: 147 Awesomeness: Time's Champion Cuddles: Magical AKA: Radagast the Brown, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, etc
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Lewis Baston's election 2015 forecast: Labour 36%, Conservatives 34%, Lib Dems 16% /@LewisBaston has commented on my write-up of his election 2015 forecast: http://bit.ly/16UIdRr Is election 2015 worth the wait? You'd better believe it | Steve Richards | Comment is free | The Guardian Often agree with @SteveRichards14 but his statement "The natural life of a p'ment is 4 years at most" is journo talk http://bit.ly/HAmu5k Our need to hate creates another victim | The Times This is why @MatthewParris3 is one of the best columnists around: "Our need to hate creates ...
For me the particularly interesting aspect of the secret imprisonment of 11th October is that it appears that the judge imprisoned the mother because the judge did not believe what she said. Now that means that the judge is actually prosecuting the mother for perjury as well as sitting in judgment. The mother said her children were somewhere, but they were not. The point about this is that
LibDemVoice has two parallel sites. The first is our public blog, the thing you're reading now. The second is our private members' forum, which only current Lib Dem members can access. If you're a member and want to chat with fellow party members about any issue that's on your mind, then why not sign up? In addition, you'll be included in our regular surveys' of party members' views. Here's some of the most active discussions this past 10 days: What would you like to see in 2015 manifesto?; The end of the British breakfast as we know it; EARS still ...
This morning, I had the pleasure of attending the Blackness Court Coffee Morning. Despite a rainy morning, there was a great turnout, with a good variety of stalls. See photo below:
Do you remember the Australian Democrats? They were the real 'Liberals' in Australian politics and dared to use the slogan 'Keep the bastards honest' in their elections since 1980. Despite the daring of the slogan, and the horrified admiration from some Lib Dem campaigners I know over here, the slogan wasn't really a success. The party lost all its national representation in 2007 and are now down to 0.3 per cent of the vote. We might perhaps diagnose their difficulty as a party which did not really know what it was. Such is the danger of the Lib Dem besetting ...
[IMG: huppert_caption comp] It's become a truth universally acknowledged in the Liberal Democrats that wherever there is a threat to our freedoms, Julian Huppert will be there trying to thwart it, whether that's convenient for the party leadership or not. Most of the time, it has to be said, it is convenient for the leadership, but it's worth remembering that if it hadn't been for the combination of him and some angry bloggers, we might be in a world where the Communications Data Act of 2012 had been passed. And so it was on Thursday in Westminster Hall when he ...
On Monday my diary only had 3 things in it, for the week, so why did I end up so busy! MONDAY: Attended a meeting at the Town Council offices looking at open spaces in the area owned or managed by Cornwall Council at the moment and where there could be scope for better, more cost effective local management. No firm decisions but conversations to be progressed with St Just in Bloom to support their excellent work in the closed grave yard. After talking with other Community Land Trust Board members, over the weekend, we had to take the decision ...
There is only one meeting at Blyth Town Council next week Finance Committee , Thursday 7th November, 6:30 pm , at Arms Evertyne House The Planning and Development Committee, scheduled for Tuesday 5th November has been cancelled.
HOLLYWELL: Was it so cold the other night that some bright spark thought they'd warm up by setting light to a caravan? Perhaps they thought it was a fair target after a few cans of beer and watching yobbish programmes depicting destruction of caravans? It was set on fire and abandoned near Studham on October 31. Firemen attended Dunstable Road in Hollywell just before 8pm. Apparently the police were also called but are reported to be not treating the incident as suspicious. What? Did it spontaneously combust, then? Really, it beggars me that these things are not treated more seriously. ...
Liberal Democrat Transport Minister Susan Kramer came to Glasgow yesterday to talk about a new study which will look at how to make sure that Scotland gets the best out of HS2. She spoke to the BBC here.
There's a terrific post in today's Times by YouGov chief executive Stephan Shakespeare assessing 10 things you need to know about the electoral scene. What makes it fascinating is his summary of quite why 2015 is, in so many ways, hard to read. For instance, Labour has a small lead in the polls for an opposition party 18 months out from the election – but a small lead may be enough given the current boundaries. But, set against that, is the fact that voters don't regard Ed Miliband as prime ministerial and think a Labour victory would make for a ...
We're 18 months from the May 2015 election so I thought it'd be useful to keep a running check on how candidate selection is going in our held and key target seats... I published a first draft of this list a week ago, and asked readers to help me update it – many thanks to those of you who commented here, on Twitter, via Facebook and by email and text. I thought it would be helpful to re-publish the list now we have much fuller information about (re-)selections in our held seats and the top 50 targets for the party. ...
I'm a bit confused about the recent news that, apparently, no one was fooled by the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds". For years it was common knowledge that the newscast style of the play caused mass panic in America. According to Michael J. Socolow: The newspaper industry sensationalized the panic to prove to advertisers, and regulators, that radio management was irresponsible and not to be trusted. Earlier this year I was in the New York City's public records exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. Amongst the papers they had on display was this ...
Jack Monroe rips Richard Littlejohn a new one (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The Family Support Hub is planning a series of days giving people a chance to buy, and sell, things in the run up to Xmas. It starts later this month at the Village Hall on Banks Road. Here's the link to the Facebook page with the information.
Transport Minister Susan Kramer came to Glasgow yesterday to talk about the benefits HS2 will bring to Scotland, even though it's not as yet planned to come all the way north. It will cut journey times by an hour and bring economic benefit apparently. She spoke to the BBC here: * Caron Lindsay is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
[IMG: image] Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey) features on the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS as one of the Haloween costumes. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Following residents in Newhall Gardens raising concerns about the potholed road surface at the entrance to the street, I raised this with the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership. I have received the following feedback: "The Road Maintenance Partnership inspector has raised an order to have a number of potholes filled at this location with a timescale for completion of twenty eight days or sooner."
I very much welcome yesterday's announcement by both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister that they will accept the key recommendations of the Silk Commission on tax and borrowing powers. It is no secret that the opposition and delay to this announcement came from the Conservative side of the coalition. It has been an uphill struggle to get them to agree to implement these key recommendations. Liberal Democrats have consistently supported greater financial powers for the National Assembly. It is a credit to my Liberal Democrat colleagues in government that this announcement has been made after over a decade ...
Until the 1990s there was no parliamentary scrutiny of Britain's intelligent services; they reported directly to the Prime Minister and in principle were answerable to him alone. That changed with the Intelligence Agencies Act pf 1994, but as Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Chairman of the Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, explained at an AEJ UK Section [...]
With an extremely tenuous link to today's departure of yet another Hibs manager - the good natured and honourable Pat Fenlon - here are probably the most famous Hibee musicians - Craig and Charlie Reid with their debut performace on the Tube with a tongue tied Paula Yates fluffing her pronunciation ...
