Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. This week has been a really busy week so may I apologise if you're waiting for a reply from me, they will be coming shortly. 1. Open Cast MiningIt's a shame that we're having to start this week with two items of very bad news for the borough. The first is that the County Council have voted to allow UK ...
Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams has been successful in the National Assembly's ballot to introduce backbench legislation. She will be calling on AMs to support her calls for a change in the law to require minimum staffing levels for nurses in Wales. Kirsty said: "This change in the law could transform the quality of care provided in the Welsh NHS. It is staggering to see the vast difference in the ratio of nurses to patients in Wales when compared to the rest of the UK. Once again Welsh Labour's poverty of ambition has led to our NHS having to ...
Watch the new video from Amnesty International UK: You can also watch this on YouTube.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 357th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (8-14 December, 2013), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1.The bad name of ...
[IMG: siblings going to school] As the Lib Dem lead member for Children & Schools on the County Council, for some time now I have been supporting the "Siblings at the Same School" group in their fight to get Warwickshire County Council to adopt a better schools admissions policy, one which would help to address the real difficulties faced by parents where siblings are unable to attend the same primary school due to oversubscribed Reception classes. In September we thought we had won the argument. WCC put out a press release saying that it would consult on changes ...
On Friday evening, along with many other brave soles, I went to witness the turning on of the lights in St Just. The highlight was the Pendeen band playing a wonderful and popular mix of carols. Sadly the weather was not so good! My next step towards Christmas is to go to see all the decorated trees, at the Methodist chapel – the Christmas Festival.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "Our thoughts go out to the people of South Africa who will be left heartbroken by this sad news. "Every so often history produces an individual whose message is universal, and Nelson Mandela will be mourned and missed on every continent around the globe. The hope he offered was enough to unite races; it bridged cultures and transcended generations; and it could heal the deepest divides. "That hope must now live on. Nelson Mandela's legacy will continue to burn brightly, there is little doubt about that. But our greatest tribute to him will be ...
This week, the Scottish Parliament paid tribute to Nelson Mandela. Here is Willie Rennie's speech in full. Like so many others, I saw today's remarkable scenes from Johannesburg, with presidents and prime ministers, archbishops and cardinals, and village choirs and children from Soweto gathered in one place. Nelson Mandela's death was a moment that we all knew would come but, for most of our lives, we could only have dreamed that he would be able to pass on peacefully, in freedom and with the thanks of the world around him. The vocation of politics to play a part in a ...
The ALDE Party has called an extraordinary Electoral Congress to advise the ALDE Party Bureau to choose a candidate for the President of the European Commission. This congress will take place in the afternoon of the 1st February 2014, in Brussels. Liberal Democrats are the biggest delegation with the total of sixty-two votes. There are only two declared candidates so far, Guy Verhofstadt, Leader of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament, and former Prime Minister of Belgium, and Olli Rehn, Vice President of the European Commission, and Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, a key portfolio over the past ...
Little Walter was the great Chicago blues harmonica player, appearing as a member of the band or as a session musician on many recordings by the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters. It was his sound that many of the British R&B groups of the 1960s were seeking to emulate. Here is playing in 1967 with, looking very relaxed, Hound Dog Taylor on guitar. By all accounts Little Walter was mean as a coyote that had missed its breakfast and died from the effects of a street fight and hard living.
I've written before about the difference between a person being childless and being childfree. It is a simple matter of intention. Those who want children but don't have them are childless - whereas those with no desire to procreate are childfree. This is quite an important distinction - and yet it is almost completely absent from the recent Office of National Statistics' report saying "one fifth of women are childless at age 45." They recently put out these data as an infographic on Twitter. 45% of 30 year olds in 2012 were childless. See how this compares to previous generations ...
My first few weeks as a distance learner at Leicester have flown by, so with one term down and five to go, I feel that ought to let you know how I've been getting on. In hindsight, the first two weeks of the course were probably the most stressful. As well as having to find my way around an unfamiliar virtual learning environment (VLE), we had a two week deadline to submit a 1,000 word essay for our early assignment. As I've observed elsewhere, 1,000 word essays are far more difficult for me to write than 2,000 word essays. However, ...
Many thanks to the 16,500 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... The Clegg family Christmas card, with a little help from their sons (4 comments) by Stephen Tall FOUND: David Cameron's Little Black Book (16 comments) by Helen Duffett Three scenarios for the 2015 election based on current polling. Which do you think looks most plausible? (50 comments) by Stephen Tall Our liberal identity crisis (80 comments) by Steve Bradley "Good" gender segregation and "Bad" gender segregation? (58 comments) by Stephen Tall Lib Dems should aim for a budget surplus, not because ...
The LGA have recently commented on findings that indicate joining a national voluntary agreement on public fundraising has dramatically decreased the number of complaints from local shoppers. The figures speak for themselves and we would urge any councils who have not yet considered joining this scheme to consider it (or ask questions about it if [...]
The second and final part of an independent Green Belt review for St Albans District has been received by the Council today and published on its website.
For those of us worrying about the future of our planet following the extinction of the bumble bee, this article in today's Independent comes as a blessed relief. It is too early of course to celebrate but the sudden revival of the species is certainly good news. The paper says that a project that began as an attempt to reintroduce an extinct bumblebee to Britain has sparked a comeback by five other species whose numbers have dwindled alarmingly in recent decades. Conservationists now believe that the speed of their recovery suggests that the bees can cope with some pesticide use ...
This year opera geeks celebrated Verdi's 200th birthday. The Met celebrated with a new production of Falstaff by Robert Carsen. What a wonderful idea to remember a man's life by showing his last and funniest opera. Also, how wonderful that Verdi's last opera was so light-hearted and positive (comparing to his other operas, in particular.) [...]
Sun 15th
09:08
The Government's obsession with London is holding back our creative industries - and the recovery
This post originally featured on the Liberal Democrat Voice website As a failed rock guitarist but still passionate consumer of music I always look forward to the Mercury Music awards at the end of October, and this year's nominees were as interesting and eclectic as they usually are. What wasn't as diverse was where these ... Continue reading »
After returning from my first ever trip to China, I felt a 'postcard' was in order to summarise this wonderful experience. It was a huge honour to be asked to represent our Party along with fellow Chinese Lib Dems Merlene Emmerson, Alex Payton and Steven Cheung on this visit by official invitation of the Chinese Government in the Guandong province in Southern China. The trip was organised by the British Chinese Project, a not for profit organisation that works to increase awareness and greater engagement in politics by the British Chinese population. Our sixteen strong delegation included representatives from all ...
posted The Blood is The Life 14-12-2013 http://t.co/1hitx8jTek on #dreamwidth (tags: dreamwidth (from twitter) ) What have the Lib Dems ever done for us? Actually, Mr Cameron's 'little black book' outlines it all very nicely (tags: ) iOS terms and conditions (tags: ) "Oh noes I spilt water on my chemistry notes" (tags: ) Gender roles imposed very early: further evidence (tags: ) 2x Eureka! Enablers http://t.co/SULbMo6gBO #Calderdale #jobs (tags: calderdale jobs (from twitter) ) GOG.com "Your friend MatGB sends you nice little gift from http://t.co/cjIfIMrKc2. All necessary information about your gift are to be found below." (tags: ...
One of the most read posts on this blog was about the difficulty of constructing a genuinely biblical view of sexuality. I posed questions without having answers. I still don't but thanks to the historian Peter Brown's review of From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity by Kyle Harper, [...]
Yesterday, I was part of the Roseangle Playpark Campaign bag packing efforts at Asda Dundee West, to help raise funds for the playpark campaign - see below. What lovely, friendly staff at Asda and generous customers too!
The Liberal Democrats put the Pupil Premium on the front page of our manifesto and we are delivering it in Government. Giving support to the poorest pupils helps to build the fairer society that Liberal Democrats want to create. Figures out today show the poorest primary school children are closing the gap on their wealthier peers. It is encouraging to see that the attainment gap continues to narrow between the worst off and their peers but there is more work to be done. Today's figures show a number of local authorities with unacceptable levels of attainment for poorer pupils. Schools ...
Kirsty Williams, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, has been successful in the National Assembly's ballot to introduce backbench legislation. She will be calling on Assembly Members to support her calls for a change in the law to require minimum staffing levels for nurses in Wales. The legislation would require the government to produce regulations which set a minimum staffing level for nurses in Wales. These regulations would be required to set minimum nurse staffing levels for each different acute and specialty service. The legislation would also give the government the power to use similar regulations for community nursing, but ...
This evening BBC4 screened the last ever episode of the political drama Borgen. Here's some reasons that's such a loss. 1. It was smart and warm Even in translation the intelligence of the story and its characters comes through. 2. It was a realistic view of politics In House of Cards there's no idealism. In [...]
