If anyone doubted that only the Liberal Democrats are the true party of IN when it comes to the European Union the opening reception of the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe) Party Congress at the East Wintergarden in Canary Wharf this evening would have persuaded them. It's the biggest ever event of [...]
I once heard Jim Wallace say that when your opponents start fighting on your chosen ground you should be pleased. It shows you are winning this debate. He is right, which is why I do not think Nick Clegg's embrace of the Conservatives' anti-immigrant rhetoric will achieve its aim of curbing the threat from UKIP. Imagine you are a UKIP voter - go on, try. If you here even the leader of the hated Liberal Democrats admitting that we are too soft on immigrants who come here to live off the state, that will confirm you in your view of ...
From his opening address: It gives me great pleasure to welcome over 900 Liberals from across the EU and beyond here to London's Canary Wharf. The European Liberal family includes three current prime ministers and over a quarter of European Commissioners are Liberals. Liberal parties are in government in 16 different European countries, as well as being the third largest political group in the European Parliament. This family is a truly formidable fighting force - and we British Liberal Democrats benefit massively from being part of it. A word to the wise. Don't fall asleep outside the building or Clegg ...
Earlier this evening, after my weekly ward surgery at Blackness Primary School, I attended the Friends of Riverside Nature Park AGM at Blackness Library. The AGM was really well attended and Ian Ford gave a really well-presented Chair's Annual Report on the Friends' activities over the past year. The need for a pedestrian crossing over Riverside Avenue outside the park was again raised - a matter I have already highlighted with the City Council and will continue to pursue. Exhibition display at tonight's AGM
Local Liberal Democrats are proposing a capital investment scheme of over £100 million in a once-in-a-generation programme that will see hundreds of roads and pavements properly relaid. The proposal, which will be voted on as part of the Stockport Council budget in February, will see hundreds of roads and pavements resurfaced across the borough, including many in Cheadle and Gatley. This will be the biggest programme of road repair and renewal ever seen in this borough. This scale of investment is not something to take lightly. We have been working on this for over a year. Every single road in ...
SNP seat. Resignation.
Con seat. Resignation. Prospective Candidate: Alan Winter
Lab seat. Death. Prospective Candidate: Mark Goodair
Lab seat. Resignation Prospective Candidate: Noreen Knowles
Con seat. Death. Prospective Candidate: Paul Birchall
Lab seat. Resignation. Prospective Candidate: Colette Thomas
Don't forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 28 November at 7:00 p.m in Costa Coffee, Victoria Square. Note this is a last-minute change of venue. More detail....
"This represents arguably the most xenophobic set of proposals put forward by a UK government since the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1968." Yesterday was not a good day to be a Liberal Democrat, says Andrew Page. "A striking aspect of the Welsh Government's legislative programme since the devolution of primary law-making powers has been the number of so-called framework bills presented to the Assembly. These skeletal laws contain little in the way of detail in terms of how a policy will be delivered in the Bill itself. Instead, they rely on a second layer of law, subordinate legislation or regulation, to ...
Thu 28th
21:24
Have you been ennobled, Lord Paddick, or are you just pleased to see us? (AKA Look! It's Brian in hi...
We don't do caption competitions here at libDemVoice any more, but if we did this one would surely feature... [IMG: brian paddick] Here's the official caption by way of explanation... Lord Brian Paddick smiles after winning the race for the House of Lords during the The House of Lords v House of Commons Speedo Charity Swim at Porchester Hall on November 27, 2013 in London, England.
A great result for the work of Cllr Richard Wilson, Lynne Featherstone and the team in Haringey: Labour failed to build any council homes for 25 yrs in #Haringey. Now Lib Dem campaign + £ secured in govt=100 to be built #Win — Mark Pack (@markpack) November 28, 2013
The county council has informed us that the long-awaited resurfacing of Carlisle Avenue has been postponed until 2014.. This is the third postponement this year.
I was doing a bit of digging around the other day on the general UK Government Information site - and noticed a few slightly odd things; such as there is only one of the 24 Ministerial departments where there is a majority of Lib Dems holding office. Anyway, some of our Westminster representatives do seem to have some slightly strange responsibilities. So would you like to hazard a guess who is Minister for Lap Dancing Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard Minister for Bees Minister for Taxis The answers to all 5 are listed below ...
BBC News wins Headline of the Day today. Now read about the Northampton clown.
Last week saw two extremes of Lib Dem performance - a great win against Labour in Golcar in Kirklees and an abject defeat to the Tories in Comberton South Cambridgeshire. This week there are six contests - three Labour vacancies, two Tory and one SNP - in John Thurso's Caithness and Sutherland constituency. Needless to say it's the only contest in which the Lib Dems aren't standing. The interesting contests are in Lambeth's Vassell ward which in 2010 was a tight Lib Dem/Labour contest where both parties won seats in a split ward. I can't see it being that close ...
SSP (the "food travel experts" behind such railway station brands as Upper Crust and Ritazza) has an unintentionally funny website: http://www.foodtravelexperts.com/uk/. Who knew that SSP was adapting global food and travel trends to distinctive UK and Ireland local market needs? I thought that they were just heating up over-priced sausage baguettes - or not as the case may be, as, some weeks ago, I was asked in Upper Crust if I would like mine heated up, said yes and received a somewhat cold sausage, complained and was sent a compensatory £5 promissory note (for which thanks), which I spent in ...
Thu 28th
18:53
It's all kicking off in Calderdale...aka how to beat your Labour opposition in 140 characters
Recently, Alisdair Calder McGregor was selected as the Liberal Democrat Candidate for Calder Valley. His articles on Liberal Democrat Voice on the energy price freeze and the living wage have been widely read and well received. Last night, he ended up having a Twitter conversation with his Labour opposition and the excellent Jennie Rigg made a Storify thingy. BTW, I have shamelessly nicked the photo of Alisdair form her blog. I hope she doesn't mind. The reason I'm putting her Storify thing up is because I think we can sometimes be a bit too timid around Labour people. Remember this ...
Rebecca Willis: It's hard to translate a distant scientific issue like climate change, but local carbon budgets, based on the Climate Change Act's national ones, have helped do just that. Rebecca Willis
I'm never sure why it seems so difficult to get all the Christmas lights – the ones on lampposts – working properly. There have been a few out in Cheadle and Gatley. I've investigated and it seems to be an issue with the timers rather than the lights themselves; and I've been promised it will be sorted in the next few days. We'll be keeping a close eye on it!
We were very concerned to hear reports from residents that the Council wasn't going to repair the potholes on the path to the Scout Hut at the top of Gatley Hill. We got on the case and it seems to have been a mix-up somewhere along the line. The parks people were very apologetic and we've been promised that the potholes will be filled in shortly, with more work being scheduled for next year to sort out tree root issues.
What's important about Tuesday 29th April 2014? It could be the date when your council's contractor dispatches the bulk of the postal vote ballot papers for the local and euro elections for the May 22nd 2014 elections and it's only 5 days after the close of nominations. When will postal vote ballot papers go out [...]
Various building surveyors as well as the agent for the site owners and the conservation officer have been inspecting the collapsed Castle Street chapel this afternoon. It looks like works to make the building safe will start tomorrow. As things stand (and this can only be on the basis of an inspection from outside), it looks like the top half of the building will have to be brought down to make it safe. Once that has happened, the surveyors and other experts will decide if anything more needs to happen. Cormac have been back to fence off the site. In ...
So earlier this week Guy Whittingham was dismissed from his job as manager of Portsmouth Football Club. The former hero of the Fratton Park pitch has preceded over a disappointing start to the 2013/2014 campaign and finally was given the boot on Monday. This is because he had seemingly lost the support of the vocal proportion of fans. Speaking to BBC Radio Solent, Mark Catlin said, 'The team had completely lost confidence. It seemed to drain out of the team. As it drained out of the team, it drained out of the supporters as well and we just can't have ...
The UK science base must be protected from poorly thought out and badly implemented English higher education reforms Kieron Flanagan
Thu 28th
16:13Paul Burstow MP writes...Standardised cigarette packaging - reviewing the evidence, or just kicking ...
The news today that the Coalition Government is launching an independent review of the evidence for standardised packaging is welcome. It marks an important shift from the position Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt took in July that he would wait until the "emerging impact of the decision in Australia can be measured". Australia of course led the world when the previous Government, with all Party support, introduced standardised packaging in December last year. More welcome still is that news that the Government will take the legal powers to introduce standardised packaging in the Children and Families Bill A four month review ...
The blog has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks. This was surely either because I had nothing to write or I had suddenly got a social life. However it was neither and the truth is if I wasn't sitting watching live sport, Masterchef Australia or working I was watching The West Wing. Like most TV shows I didn't get into it at the time but I enjoyed Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom so thought I'd give his more famous show a spin. In the past month I have watched the whole thing, from season one through to the final ...
I have always believed that government needs challenge and discussion rather than deference or conformism. Sadly the ruling Bootle Labour Party in Sefton seem to disagree. The know it all. Cabinet meetings last a few minutes, the Health and Well Being Board is stuffed with Labour councillors-no opposition allowed. We have to use Freedom of Information requests to acquire information that should be in the public domain. Undue secrecy pervades their actions. As a result they 'mess up'. What follows is a tale of one such event: It has been a good year for the Public Health aspect of Mental ...
I am reeling from the fact that a government with Liberal Democrats in it is on the brink of crossing a major humanitarian line. Not content with standing by while Isa Muaza starves himself to death in protest at his treatment within an immigration detention centre, tomorrow morning they are planning to deport him. He can barely stand, and as this report from the Guardian states, he has numerous health problems. If he survives the flight, what are they going to do to someone in such a weakened state? Dump him in the arrivals lounge and head back home? What ...
Glenn Greenwald, who wrote stories on government surveillance from whistleblower Edward Snowden, has started publishing them on the Huffington Post. Greenwald has recently left the Guardian to be part of E-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar's new media venture. That is not yet running though, and it seems he needs a new base for the stories, but HuffPo [...]
The story of Walter Stansby Memorial Park is now on You Tube. I love this for a few reasons – it shows how the park went from unkempt waste ground to what we've got today, it shows Gatley in it's recent past – around 1996 and there are lots of people in the video to look out for (not to mention a hoard of Elm Road Brownies who'll all be in their 20s now).
Thu 28th
14:01
Day 4715 BONUS: Millennium's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Top Trunks #48: SPACE PILOT STEVEN TAYLOR
Still Thursday: Age: Silver Fox Stories: 28 Awesomeness: Ended up ruler of the Universe Cuddles: Panda AKA: Blue Peter Hero Mr Peter Purvis
Thu 28th
14:00Day 4715: Millennium's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Top Trunks #47: SPECIAL SPACE SECURITY SERVICE AG...
Thursday: Age: Tragically Time Destructed Stories: 6 Awesomeness: Thwarted the Daleks' Master Plan. In leather. Cuddles: Loves her brother Brett Vyon. Also shot him. AKA: Princess Joanna (The Crusade); Rose the Lady's Maid; co-creator of Upstairs Downstairs; and of House of Eliot; Morgaine, the Sunkiller, Dominator of the Thirteen Worlds and Battle Queen of the S'rax; the divine Jean Marsh
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Don't summon up the immigration monster | The Times Brilliant from @DAaronovitch > Don't summon up the immigration monster http://thetim.es/1ihwWj5 You don't have to be a Tory to believe the Conservative Party deserves better than Cameron True: "You don't have to be a Tory to believe the Con Party deserves better than Cameron" | @rafaelbehr > http://bit.ly/1ihwsJH The Book List Challenge. How many have you read? Really, just no: "The Book List Challenge" http://bit.ly/1cycOCk Enjoy reading, and sod the canon. 11 Manly Ways To Tie A Scarf – Business Insider Incl 9 ...
I am a bit late with this reference but I thought it still worth mentioning the report in the Telegraph a few days ago that underlined how closely tied in Labour and Labour politicians are with the Cooperative Bank, who continue to give them favours despite their own financial troubles. The paper says Labour's property portfolio, including Ed Balls's constituency buildings, have benefited from cheap loans from the Co-operative Bank: Labour Party Properties Ltd (LPPL), a property firm wholly owned by the Labour Party, has used its £6.3 million portfolio to secure £3.8 million of cheap finance from the Co-op Bank. The ...
Thu 28th
13:02Day 4714 BONUS2: Millennium's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Top Trunks #46: SPECIAL SOUND DICK MILLS
Yet More Wednesday:
Thu 28th
13:01Day 4714 BONUS: Millennium's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Top Trunks #45: SPECIAL SOUND BRIAN HODGESO...
More Wednesday:
Wednesday: Age: Swinging Sixties Stories: 21 Awesomeness: Can kill a Cyberman with her nail varnish Cuddles: Able Seaman Ben Jackson. Jamie doesn't get a look in. AKA: Lady Pollard; Miss Pussy Kat (The Avengers, Dressed to Kill); the impossible girl, Miss Anneke Wills
Thu 28th
12:01Day 4713 BONUS: Millennium's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Top Trunks #43: DERRICK SHERWIN
Tuesday again: Age: of Change Stories: 7 Awesomeness: Created UNIT. And the Time Lords. Exiled the Doctor to Earth. Killed Troughton, Cast Pertwee. And left! Not bad for a couple of afternoon's work. Cuddles: too busy AKA: oldest surviving producer of Doctor Who
Thu 28th
12:00Day 4713: Millennium's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Top Trunks #42: TERRANCE VERSATILE DICKS
Tuesday: Age: A Young Old sort of a face Stories: at least 75 as author, at least 30 as script editor Awesomeness: Escape... to Danger! Cuddles: A wheezing groaning sort of noise AKA: General Sontar...er... Uncl' Terry
Thu 28th
11:50Nick Clegg is wrong on EU benefits - his words and actions don't match up. We might save peanuts, bu...
So, all these EU citizens from poorer countries coming here and claiming benefits. A huge problem? Actually, not so much. My Liberal Democrat Voice co-editor was bang on the money yesterday when he said:So, for all the uproar and shouting, 94% of overseas nationals entering the UK do not claim out-of-work benefits within six months - c.6% do, compared to c.13% of UK natives. That's not nothing, but it puts the issue into perspective, doesn't it?That's also the most charitable explanation I can come up with for Nick Clegg's decision to go along with the Tory proposals, describing them as ...
There is something strange happening. This week we have seen the British Prime Minister question whether the free movement of labour is necessarily a good thing. The prospect of potentially socially disruptive Bulgarian and Rumanian immigration is concentrating his mind while all across the EU pray devoutly that the worst of tabloid fears will not come to pass. The banking collapse in 2009 made all of us question whether the unfettered, free movement of capital was invariably a good thing. Currently the merits of the free movement of capital and labour are up for debate. What we are seeing is ...
It has been revealed today that Cameron is planning on ordering Internet Service Providers to block "extremist" websites. It may surprise some people, but I don't have a problem with this. The reason I'm not worried is that it's not going to work, because Cameron wants to use the anti-Child-Abuse Cleanfeed system to do it. One of the many criticisms of Cleanfeed is that it's completely ineffective in the face of either a web site host or an end user with even a hint of technical ability, and there are even US Navy-sponsored initiatives to help users in oppressive regimes ...
Lib Dem County Councillor for St Albans South, Sandy Walkington, has condemned the county council's recommendation that it enters into a section 106 agreement with Helioslough for the Park Street freight terminal and sells its land to allow the development to go ahead. "St Albans and Park Street were stabbed in the front by Eric Pickles when he suddenly reversed his previous position and said he was minded to approve the scheme," Sandy said. "Now we are being stabbed in the back by his Conservative colleagues at County Hall. "They seem to be taking the position that they are bound ...
The LGiU have recently put together a very useful collection of essays on Planning, on behalf of the Lib Dem Communities and Local Government backbench committee. Contributors to the collection include Annette Brooke, Keith House, Terry Stacy, Andrew Stunell and Ruth Dombey. In total, there are fifteen contributions, the vast majority from prominent Liberal Democrats [...]
[IMG: Basketball match - photo from Massimo Fiznzio and sharted under Creative Commons - Malcolm Gladwell's latest book - David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants - contains, as you might expect from the subtitle, some stories rather relevant to the Liberal Democrats. Most notably, there is use of the full court press tactic in American basketball – and that's a story with themes very familiar to Liberal Democrat ears. Requiring huge amounts of hard work, the full court press strategy lets teams that are more poorly resourced beat nominally far stronger opponents through sheer ...
Most residents of Launceston are probably aware that the Castle Street Chapel collapsed overnight. The building - which is listed - has been unused and boarded up for a number of years now. I was told by a number of local residents that they heard banging and other noises over the past 24 hours - presumably the start of the building falling in on itself. Clearly it is a huge relief that the collapse happened at 12.20am rather than during the day and so there were no injuries. A couple of cars were damaged however. For the moment, Castle Street ...
This week the Liberal Democrats are playing host to the wider European Liberal family – the ALDE Party's big annual congress, which is taking place in London on today, Friday and Saturday. Over 900 Liberals from across the EU and beyond will gather in Canary Wharf to draw up the common manifesto for the 2014 European Parliament elections and consider nominees for the Liberal candidate for European Commission President. The European Liberal family includes three current Prime Ministers: Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, Andris Ansip of Estonia and Alenka Bratušek of Slovenia, and they will soon be joined by Xavier ...
The blogpost is cross-posted from www. newweather.org... I listened to the Localis lecture by Penrith MP Rory Stewart yesterday, talking about the importance of local action - if we are going to fulfil our promise to our children that they can grow up and re-make the world. He told the story of a small village in his constituency and their long battle to get a broadband connection, digging the trench, raising money and eventually persuading the government to fund the remaining £17,500 - a long, exhausting process. Exhausting because of the complications which inevitably emerge for this kind of project: ...
There is a fascinating battle going on at the moment. It involves Obamacare, obviously, but also whether corporations can have a religion. As Rachel Maddow explains in the video below, the rise of "fire and brimstone" social conservative politics has combined with Obamacare and anti-contraception campaigning in an (un)holy alliance that is going all the [...]
With a Tory incumbent in a key UKIP target seat stepping down at the next election the week has looked pretty good so far for Nigel Farage's lot. Today the YouGov/Sun tracker puts them on 13%, 3% ahead of the Lib Dems. Labour's lead over the Conservatives is at 7%. Con 32% Lab 39% LD [...]
Sleepy Hollow cast promo video. The sunglasses LMAO! Good those two are hilarious (tags: ) hilariously cod academic article on iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner ... found when googling to try and find out who the actor is in the spoken word bit. "Iron Maiden sought transcendence in that liminal space between high culture and pop culture, myth and materiality, and cracked through the bland, conforming surfaces of Thatcherism and Reaganism." - *dies laughing* (tags: ) "Just grab any shirt Dean, what does it matter? You only... on Twitpic LMAO RT @garwboy: "Just grab any shirt Dean, what ...
Josh Dixon has written about why he feels selling off the student loan book from the 90′s is a worrying prospect for graduates. Whilst there are rightful concerns raised, the piece fails to clarify some important points about the working of debt and the economic sense behind the most recent sale The article specifically alludes to the face value of the last student loan book which was around £900 million which was then sold off for £160 million. Whilst this may seem like a massive loss on the most superficial of levels, it is important to understand the other facts ...
One of the criticisms of the Hunger Games is that it's not plausible that in a futuristic sci-fi world with extremely advanced technology, much of the population would still be on the edge of starvation. Matthew Yglesias argues that the extreme inequality between the Capital and the Districts is not only plausible but has actually [...]
[IMG: Norman Baker] A few days ago I mentioned that Nick Harvey has joined Twitter. In the march of the Ns, add another one to the list of Liberal Democrat MPs embracing the social network which has more active users in the UK than the total daily sale of our national newspapers. It's Norman Baker, Home Office minister and occasional musician. He is @NormanBakerMP and you can follow all the Lib Dem MPs on Twitter via this list. I await a tweet about Buckingham Palace's gardens...
I loved the latest episode of Doctor Who. What made it even better was the fantastic use of 3D. It had just enough "wow" moments to make the use of technology worthwhile - without totally overdoing it. I watched the episode live at home on my Panasonic TX-L37ET5B. After the broadcast, I wanted to watch it again. That's where the problems started. First, a quick lesson on how 3D TV broadcasts work. Generally speaking, most 3D TV is Half-Side-By-Side. That means the left and right image are horizontally compressed and combined into a single image. [IMG: Doctor Who 3D Fez] ...
New from the Deputy Prime Minister's office: You can also watch this on YouTube.
In the Welsh Assembly elections in May 2011, the Welsh Labour Party won half of the seats available, but consequently failed to get that all-important majority that would allow them to govern without the support of at least one of the opposition parties. Rather than enter a coalition, they chose to go it alone. So how does a government without a majority get its legislative programme passed? On the face of it, the answer is to win the political argument and develop a consensus in the Senedd. Over the past two and a half years we have seen the Welsh ...
Binary choices make for polarised debates Constitutional reform is something I care passionately about. There are significant problems with the way the United Kingdom looks to enable its people to govern themselves. I was converted to Scottish independence by a growing scepticism that Westminster was capable of reinventing itself and producing a credible approach for a new relationship between London and Holyrood. And yet I find myself utterly despairing at the argument and the attitude underpinning the Yes campaign. More than that, though, I find myself utterly scunnered with the way this debate is being engaged with, and the disrespectful ...
Westminster Liberal Democrats may not have any local councillors, yet — though watch Bayswater ward closely next May! But they do have some dedicated and moreover interesting members, which means that their annual dinners are always particularly enjoyable. That is also due to the fact that these dinners have been hosted in recent years by [...]
