Earlier this evening I blogged about the imprisonment of Stuart Syvret on Jersey. This interview, which appeared on his blog three weeks ago, gives the background to the case.
The LibDems are the Party of In Europe, but could LibDemHQ remember that NI is in the UK? Continue reading →
Well done, Wigan Today: A glittering ceremony to reward Wigan pubs and clubs for preventing night scene violence ended in a fight.Thanks to a reader on Twitter.
Garry Kasparov looks forward to the world chess championship match between the holder Viswanathan Anand and his young Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen on the Business Insider site: Anand is a fantastic chessplayer who brings honor to the sport and to his nation with his skill and his boundless good nature. If he wins this match his high place on chess Olympus is assured. I am predicting a Carlsen victory because of his talent, his results, and the tides of chess history. I am rooting for a Carlsen victory because a new generation deserves a new champion. Most of all, I ...
Last night I moved a motion to Full Council: Stronger economy – Supporting Business, Creating Jobs; seconded by Cllr Richard Clifton. The text of my speech was as follows: We are ambitious for Sutton. We love Sutton. Like our fellow residents we know it is a great place to live, and to work, and we [...]
Kenneth Clarke, many Lib Dems favourite Tory, said last weekend that women should not be allowed to be veiled when giving evidence in court. This is at odds with the views of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, who has been reported in the past as saying that women should be free to wear what they want, except in exceptional circumstances. His argument is that for a court to determine whether a witness is telling the truth, it is important to be able to see a person's body language. A veil, therefore, prevents this from happening. The radio interview I heard ...
Before I left London on my latest foreign lecture tour I was delighted to join the celebrations marking the actor Donald Sinden's 90th birthday at the Garrick Club in Covent Garden. He has lost none of his impish sense of humour and is one of those thespians who has won thousands of admirers. His voice [...]
Bin Laden has won, in airports of the world every day. I had a little jar of honey, now thrown away by rule-bound dundridges. STUPID waste. — Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) November 3, 2013A lot of people have been laughing at Richard Dawkins for sending this tweet. But he is right. As Dawkins said on the Guardian website today: Unfortunately, when I returned to make a similar point on Twitter this week, I foolishly chose a peg that was vulnerable to misinterpretation as self-interested. And the result was a puerile display of sniggering frivolity such as only Twitter can serve up. ...
It was beginning to get a mite depressing as another day dawned without power. So, I rang UK Power Networks to find out what the latest news was and, to my surprise, I got through almost immediately. "I'm sorry, Mr Valladares,", said another very polite operator, "but we don't really know when someone will get to your village. I'll get back to you when I have some more information.". Luckily, I'm a fairly patient soul, so I left it another three hours before trying again. This time, I was a little more assertive, noting that, in a village without mains ...
This afternoon I took part in a workshop on 'The Culture of Blogging' as part of Community Media Week. The event took place in the training room at BBC Radio Leicester (across the road from the Guildhall and Cathedral) and I was interviewed by John Coster from Citizens' Eye and answered questions from an audience of 20. I talked about learning journalism and magazine production in the days before desktop publishing and of the punk ethic of blogging - everyone can have a blog, just as everyone can be in a band. And as someone who has had his ups ...
Among the many things to look out for in coming weeks are: 11th November 10.45 - Annual Remembrance Day service and wreathlaying by the Deputy Mayor at the War Memorial and also Hampstead's Civilian Memorial both at Hampstead Cemetery in Fortune Green Road 14th November -7.30 Area Action Group for West Hampstead & Fortune Green at the Synagogue Hall, Dennington Park Road - among topics for discussion will be the behaviour of the 139 buses! 30th November 10.00am- 4.00pm Annual West Hampstead Christmas Market on West End Green - crafts, activities, and food Details - go to: http://www.westhampsteadchristmasmarket.co.uk/
You know how much we've all been grumbling about our dirty streets recently? Well this morning we received this from the Council: "This week the council has launched the Clean Camden campaign, a new initiative to tackle environmental crime across Camden. The campaign will crack down on those people who continue to litter, dump their waste or unwanted items, or not clear up after their dog. The new education and enforcement team will lead operations across the borough to increase the action being taken to tackle these issues. The Clean Camden campaign also calls on residents to help us crack ...
FORTUNE GREEN AND WEST HAMPSTEAD AREA ACTION GROUP (AREA FORUM) MEETING Wednesday 13th November 2013 7.00pm - 9.30pm Hampstead Synagogue Community Hall, 1 Dennington Park Road, NW6 1AX Dear resident, We are writing to invite you to the next Area Action Group (Area Forum) meeting on Wednesday 13th November. The last area action group meeting took place on 2nd July 2013. Copies of the notes of that meeting will be available at the meeting and on We are Camden shortly. The agenda for the next meeting on the Wednesday 13th November is as follows: 7.00 Opportunity to meet ward councillors ...
This story appeared on the Guardian website yesterday evening, though it did not make this morning's printed edition: Jersey's former health minister has been sentenced to three months in prison after refusing to take down articles on his blog making serious allegations against a number of people on the island. Stuart Syvret, described by one judge as "a thorn in the side of the [Jersey] establishment", did not attend the court hearing in the royal court in St Helier on Monday but was arrested at his home after locking himself in his flat. According to John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat ...
Following David Laws' call for proposals for the Liberal Democrats' 2015 Manifesto, the first submissions from members are now up on the Manifesto Website. Watch this space for more members' ideas to be discussed. Or submit your own idea and maybe you'll see it up there soon!
The first session of a new Internet Cafe is on Wednesday 6 November from 12 noon - 2pm at Crossens Community Centre, Rufford Road, Southport. This is a joint venture between North Meols Library Association and Crossens Community Association to make some provision for computer facilities when Churchtown Library closes. This is only a small start, but if successful it is hoped to extend the service.
[IMG: UK-Borders] Liberal Democrats celebrate the fact that immigrants make a substantial social contribution to UK society, and they have long suspected that immigrants make a net financial contribution as well. That claim is now backed up by a recent study undertaken by University College London, and reported by the BBC. In a paper for the Centre of Research and Analysis of Migration, authors Christian Dustmann and Tommaso Frattini conclude that: Recent immigrants, i.e. those who arrived since 2000, are less likely to both receiving benefits and living in social housing than natives. Furthermore, recent immigrants, both those from European ...
[IMG: Ballot paper] Last week the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Electoral Conduct published its recommendations. The Liberal Democrats played a leading part in this inquiry and we are pleased to report that our approach to tackling discrimination is rightly credited in the findings of the all-party panel. Electoral campaigning in Britain is, the Inquiry found, generally a positive and democratically enriching process. There are however a number of areas in which better frameworks for action could be introduced which would make Britain not just a responsible democracy but one that is world-leading in facing down discriminatory electoral conduct. A key ...
Today New York city takes to the polls to elect the successor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It looks like the election will be won comfortably by Democrat Bill De Blasio. The Telegraph report that on the eve of poll De Blasio leader Republican Joe Lhota, by a staggering 40%. If the polls come true, De [...]
This is – according to the Labour Party – the start of "Living Wage week", a soundbite policy of the kind we're now used to hearing from Labour. Superficially, the idea of the Living Wage is simple and tempting. Figure out how much it costs to live, and force employers to pay that much. Labour's chosen method of doing this is to offer employers tax breaks – for a year - if they comply with the Living Wage rather than the national minimum wage. However, as pointed out by the Adam Smith Institute, what we are actually dealing with is ...
This ad for Hamlet Cigars never made it to air, though it shows how much has changed that it made it as far as being produced:
The BBC report this morning on a very important contribution to the debate on immigration with the outcome of a study by the University College London which says that immigrants coming to the UK since 2000 have made a "substantial" contribution to public finances. The study destroys some of the myths around immigration by concluding that recent immigrants are less likely to claim benefits and live in social housing than people born in Britain. The authors say that rather than being a "drain", their contribution has been "remarkably strong": Immigrants who arrived after 1999 were 45% less likely to receive ...
"The current proposals have precious little to back them up whilst research from our local area and across the world points to the huge problems that could result. Key amongst those is the negative affect on the health of Greenwich residents who already suffer with unacceptably high levels of air pollution. The probability is that these [...]
As the nights draw in, we all start noticing any faulty or obscured streetlights. If you spot a faulty streetlight, the best thing is to report it on the Council website – there's a map to ensure you identify the right one. I'm currently chasing up a couple of faulty lights on "conker island", Old Hall Road, Gatley which should have been fixed by now. I've also got the Council to cut back trees on Styal Road where they're obscuring streetlights – that should be happening in the next week or two. A couple of months ago, we got a ...
I have gained a bizarre insight into the strange regulatory world about what you can say as a charity or a community interest company (CIC), mainly because I have been helping to launch a new mutual think-tahnk, the New Weather Institute. Here is what the regulations say about political activity by CICs: "The promotion of (or opposition to) changes in the policy of a governmental or public authority in relation to any matter is not allowed." But in case you get too over-excited that this is a 'gagging clause', as the internet campaigners 38 Degrees might put it, you scroll ...
There are now quite a few sets of roadworks around the area – either repairs or improvements. Work at the Kingsway/Gatley Road junction continues to put in the new northbound lane changes (which will not only improve that traffic flow, but allow the lights cycle to be altered so we can get more people turning right from Cheadle and Gatley). I came through today and I was concerned that the signage near Cheadle Royal was misleading and causing more delays (it told people to get into one lane, when the road actually stays as two lanes right up to the ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Richard Dawkins: My honey trap - why doesn't anyone believe in public-spirited concern? | Comment is free | theguardian.com The headline does him no favours but Richard Dawkins is a lot more right about honey than his critics http://bit.ly/1b1gbTu Stephen Tall: Who could lead the Tories and LibDems after 2015? | Conservative Home Will it be Boris for the Tories and Tim for the Lib Dems after 2015? My @ConHome column today: http://bit.ly/1iJlwzB A discourse on brocialism Laurie Penny's right about the left's blind spot for casual sexism from one of its ...
[IMG: Money] Whenever the "cost of living" comes up as a topic, we often hear lists of consumption taxes that can be reduced to lower it. Most recently have been the green levies on energy bills; last year a big deal was made about fuel duty; the year before it was the top rate of VAT. Some people even argue that taxes on cigarettes and alcohol hit the poorest and should be cut back. I'm certain that there's all sorts of taxes that we'd like to lower, but there's no such thing as a free lunch, and any tax we ...
Tuesday: Age: Well preserved Stories: 1 Awesomeness: Finest Explorer in the Galaxy Cuddles: Would Accompany Control to the Crowned Saxe-Coburg's Garden Party AKA: Lord Cranleigh, Lieutenant-Colonel Brook, Colonel Spindleton, the splendid Michael Dundonald Cochrane
[IMG: A screenshot of a silly email] I spent several hours in school learning how to write a letter. From the correct placement of the address, right down to the "Yours sincerely / faithfully" - every aspect was drummed into me. That never happened with email. Judging from many of the people I work with - young and old - the art of writing an email has not been adequately explained. I want to take a few moments to explain how I write effective emails and what simple tips you can use to make your work emails better. Short Version ...
(Question asked by my teenage son, so I have gone looking for answers across the internet...) It is possible to have more than one Universe?An interesting question! Up to now it has only been a theory that multiple universes can exist at the same time. There are many multiverse theories out there that explain this.These include:Infinite, Bubble, Parallel, Daughter and Mathematical, all these universe theories have been put forward by scientists. Read about them here on Space.com ~ Two people who have worked to describe all types or categories of theoretical multiverse are cosmologist Max Tegmark and theoretical physicist ...
Watching the Twittersphere from my fortress of solitude I noticed that Medway Labour, indeed Kentish Labour, were out in force today at Railway stations to campaign about the rise of train fares and this Government's failure to scrap RPI and for people to have more of a working wage... I hate to say this but we've heard this all before. I've been commuting to work in London since April 2008 and my fares have been climbing since then. My monthly fare is now up to £350 odd and is set to rise yet again in January. To some extent this ...
Back in May, I wrote on Lib Dem Voice, about the launch of a programme of "Integration Pioneers" to drive forward the revolution in joined-up care that is desperately needed across the NHS and social care. On Friday, I announced the final outcome of a rigorous process to select the very best leaders in integrated care. A panel of experts, including some of the global leaders in integrated care, scrutinised the bids. Now, 14 Pioneers spread across England covering rural and urban areas will lead a movement of change joining up a horribly fragmented system which too often let's patients ...
Liberal Democrat campaigners will have recently received an email from LDHQ with the second In Europe, In Work campaign pack. The pack is available for ALDC members to download from our File Library, below. Also included in this post are a series of 'suggested tweets' drawn from a recent survey by YouGov that asked business [...]
I thought it might be useful to let you all know where we've reached with the Immigration Bill. Today, we start to discuss each clause in detail in the Bill Committee, which I'm serving on. I've tabled a whole series of amendments, to try to move the Bill back towards the sort of thing that we would like to see. I'll be suggesting that students shouldn't pay the NHS levy – they already contribute to our economy by coming here to study, and we don't want to drive them away to countries we compete with. I'll also argue that people ...
It's just gone 10am and I have Achieved Things. This is very strange. There's bound to be a terrible reckoning later... This blog post is brought to you by the letters P (for paranoia) and U (for unable to just relax and take credit when I Achieve Things), and the number 0 (as in there's 0 chance that something isn't bound to go horribly wrong later). [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Campaigner Ben Myring and local resident at Finsbury Park] Haringey Council are currently consulting on their plans to more than treble the limit on the number of big commercial music concerts in Finsbury Park from 5 to 18 days. That would allow up to 6 weekends of concerts, and with 2 weeks to set up and take down the stage each time, that is 12 weeks a year with half the park out of use. The Stroud Green Residents Association has set up a public meeting for this Thursday evening at 7.30pm in the Holy Trinity Church on Granville ...
Happy November 5th to you all.
My Lib Dem colleagues and I have always fought for better opportunities for everyone, and this extends to the world of work. Apprenticeships are an excellent route to employment, and are hugely beneficial to both the apprentice and the company they work for. Earlier this year I held an apprenticeships fair, where a number of young people signed up to programmes run by organisations such as Barclays and the Tottenham Hotspur foundation. The employers who attended the event have taken on some of Haringey's talented youngsters, and in turn the apprentices are getting paid to learn, and gaining useful experience ...
OMG!!! What is going on! I opened up my copy of Greenwich Pravda (aka Time) this morning to be greeted by the disgusting photo on Page 3. This is degrading for all residents of Greenwich to see this sort of filth paraded in our local propaganda rag. Yes, I am afraid to say that there [...]
This is totally how politicos use campaign tools I know this because I'm one of the campaign tools (tags: ) lobbying bill continues controversial (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Lloyds Bank, Leighton Buzzard - Some rights reserved by dlanor smada] There are signs that the banking crisis may be coming to an end. The old TSB has re-emerged, Lloyds may be returned wholly to the private sector. William & Glyn's may also re-emerge with investment, from amongst others, the Church Commissioners for England. So, if we ignore RBS, the banking sector looks like it can get back to solid day-to-day retail banking, can't it? Well, not quite. Retail banking is now disappearing from our local communities with only local credit unions filling the gap. Now is the time ...
[IMG: Welcome Dayton] Dayton, Ohio was in 1995 the scene for some belated, but very welcome, military intimidation by the US government. Finally exercising some serious diplomatic muscle in an attempt to bring peace to the former Yugoslavia, the US government hosted peace talks at the city's huge air force base, using the not so subtle backdrop to help pressure the participants into agreeing a deal or see those planes headed towards former Yugoslavia to enforce a settlement instead. The resulting Dayton Agreement brought to an end the three and a half years long Bosnian War. Now Dayton has another ...
For some reason it seems that superhero films quite regularly wind up being directed by people you'd never in a million years imagine going near them. For some reason studio execs seem prone to thinking along the lines of "the perfect person to direct our new blockbuster about a massive green monster smashing stuff is [...]
Last week, the City Council's City Development Committee considered a number of reviews of waiting restrictions across the city, including the following in the West End:You can see the detailed maps here.
Last week we saw a pretty dramatic weather change in the UK. It signified the start of winter and the most difficult time of year for our Health Service, the cold weather puts a huge strain on our NHS. Last winter over 2,600 operations were postponed or cancelled, according to the Head of the Welsh NHS, because of a shortage of beds. Clearly so many postponed operations is a serious problem. A problem for the Welsh Government, a problem for the already stretched NHS staff but most of all a problem for the patients who have to wait even longer, ...
