It seems that with each passing week the news on the housing front gets gloomier. A week ago the NHF published its latest Home Truths report which extrapolated current trends and concluded that if things carry on as they are then affordability - or rather unaffordability - will pretty rapidly reach new heights of absurdity. And we are barely able to grasp the implications of the longer-term scenarios for prices and rents set out in the report. Of course, the chances of these forecasts proving accurate are pretty low. All sorts of things could, and probably will, intervene in the ...
Girls don't buy toys! This is the new and exciting new finding from A Cartoon Network Exec, as reported by Paul Dini (who has a strong track record writing women in comics) to Kevin Smith (who, uh, doesn't). Anyway, it's been doing the rounds on the internet. Apparently the people who produce superhero cartoons don't want to produce anything for a potential female audience, not because girls don't like superheroes (they do) But because girls don't buy toys. This is news to me, as I suspect it's news to Disney, Mattel, Hasbro, and anyone who has ever hidden a plastic ...
The video shows the first day of operation of this route - 16 May 1931. Thirty-one years later it saw the last trolleybuses to run in London.
1. On Sunday night I realized that not only had I failed to wrap all of my Xmas presents, but I had run out of Christmas wrapping paper. Luckily I found some brown paper, red ribbon, and an old stamp set in my craft box. I was quite pleased with the result, and will be doing this instead of buying seasonal wrapping paper next year: 2. Getting this sexy little dress from Love Fashion. I'll be wearing it with thick, woolly tights, and a cardy; instead of the high heels, and fake tan that all of the celebrities who own ...
At last the county Council has taken seriously the concerns of opposition councillors and residents about failures with its highways service. That is the message from Liberal Democrat opposition Leader Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst and highways spokesperson (Lib Dem Central Watford and Oxhey). A 30 point "Action Plan" has been agreed to review and improve key areas of improvement needed following the debate sparked at Full County Council by the Liberal Democrats on the 26th November. The debate saw a Conservative motion being successfully amended by the Liberal Democrats who added in critical issues about poor performance of the county 's ...
I have only two comments on the interim findings by Howard Davies about airport capacity in the south east, which was sort of disappointing - because it seems to make no reference either to climate change or to the coalition's promise not to expand Heathrow made when they came to office. First, just to ask - are there any limits at all to the expansion of air capacity? Is there any point where we would say that, despite the supposed rewards, the cost - in destruction of homes, lives and well-being - is just too high? Because if there is, ...
Saturday saw the first Whickham Christmas market run by Lighting Up Whickham group which was set up to raise funds for the Christmas decorations in the village. The market was in a marquee which was provided free of charge by the Rotary Club. My job was to book the stallholders, get tables from Marley Hill Community Centre to Whickham (that's them in my trailer in the photo above),
The last time I wrote a blog which mentioned the campaigning organisation 38 degrees it was about a petition on their website which was badly written. I don't know how anyone could have signed it. It was so bad I even got a comment on the blog from a member of their staff who disowned the content. I have come across 38 degrees again in a Facebook link and again it concerns Michael Gove. I have to confirm again that I am not a Michael Gove fan so please take this blog entry as a criticism of 38 degrees in ...
Time to repeat an image from September of last year. This was one of Justine Greenings leaflets at the last general election.
Even in an increasingly risk averse Hollywood, a reboot that doesn't even change the lead actor is a new low We live in an era in which original films are a rarity. Only one of them, Gravity, made it into the top ten highest grossing films of 2013. Studios have become very reluctant to risk [...]
I thought this might be an interesting exercise (possibly more for me than for you). I had originally headed it "Books I've read in 2013", but I added the "some" to account for the very high probability that I have ... Continue reading →
[IMG: teresamay] The leaks from the Home Office of Tory plans over immigration, rightly shot down as illegal by Nick , are the mark of a Tory Party abandoning moderate politics to placate its increasingly vocal right wing. But the juxtaposition of Tory isolationist leanings with yesterday's official announcement from the home secretary on modern slavery exposes the total lack of joined up thinking within the Tories on trafficking & immigration. It's a terrible fact that the slave trade persists in the modern world, but it is also a fact that immigration limitations such as those proposed by the Tories ...
[IMG: Photo ot the Wenlok Jug] Some good news from last week as the Wenlok Jug, a rare medieval bronze jug with historic connections to the town and the jewel of Luton's museum collection, went back on display at the Discovery Centre after being stolen and then recovered last year. Not been to see it yet – but hope to soon.
This is the 500th post on Keynesian Liberal. The first post was on 8th April, 2010, about three weeks before the general election. That's just around 1350 days ago so the publication rate is just over one every three days: not bad considering the large number of holidays I take. I shall, perhaps hubristicly, reprint that first post at the end of this, as I think it is as true now as it was then. Similarly I can't think of any other post which events would cause me to retract. I've read somewhere that a huge proportion of blogs, I ...
Today, 17th December, is the 10th International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It seeks to raise awareness of the violence and hate experienced by sex workers around the world and help fight the stigma, discrimination and persecution brought on by society's attitudes towards sex work and dangerous prohibitionist laws. It's is all the more poignant this year following the anti-sex work actions that have occurred throughout 2013. From Rhoda Grant's attempt to criminalise the purchase of sex in Scotland, to the condom ban in Edinburgh saunas, through to the recent raids in Soho only two weeks ago, the ...
You'll all have seen this by now. But blimey and just to prove it's no fluke... Update: Via The Spectator - turns out.... they are related!
The Liberal Democrats are signed up to the Coalition Government's fiscal consolidation programme, which finishes in 2017/18. Full spending plans have been agreed up to end of this Parliament (2015/16) but no specific plans have or will be agreed beyond that. It will be for both parties to set out at the 2015 election how they will complete the balancing of the books. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives will almost certainly have very different views on the mixture of tax rises and spending cuts required. For example, the Liberal Democrats will be proposing a mansion tax, which has been ...
Alright, not really. But my little post asking where Nick's Little Black Book is seems to have developed a life of its own. First, Andrew Rawnsley followed a similar theme in the Observer (entirely coincidentally I believe). The yesterday, someone in the lobby followed up to Nick, asking the same question at the monthly press briefing (Hat tip George Eaton). 'Elsewhere during the Q&A, Clegg was asked whether he had his own "little black book" of Lib Dem policies blocked by the Tories and cited housing, border checks and banking reform as areas where they had prevented progress'. Then Stephen ...
As usual here are the highlights of the full Council meeting held last Thursday. I will start with the uncontested bits that sailed through. Localised Council tax benefits. The Government announced a few years back that it would no longer be covering the whole cost of Council tax benefits and that 10% of the cost would now be held by the charging authority (basingstoke and Deane Borough Council)
[IMG: plane] Vince Cable's constituency of Twickenham is already under the Heathrow flightpath, and he is strongly opposed to any further expansion of the airport. He writes: The Davies Commission interim report has put Heathrow at the front of its thinking which is questionable economically, damaging environmentally and probably undeliverable politically. My strong view is that the Davies review should not decide to press ahead with Heathrow options and I will be making that view known in the strongest terms. I fully support the need to improve UK business links with airports in the emerging markets of Asia which is ...
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, doesn't seem to have got really into the Christmas spirit. His card appears to depict Theresa May as some kind of which, Paul Flynn as Harry Potter baddie Professor Snape, while Julian Huppert appears to be the boy wizard himself! Vaz Xmas card seems to [...]
My learned colleague Richard Morris has been banging on about this for as long as I've been reading his work (well near enough) but what would be a very interesting by-election could happen in the autumn of 2014. Richmond Park is your typical two-horse race in the South between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Both parties can win it on a good day with a strong campaign. Both therefore can of course lose it on the exact opposite. It is the type of seat that the Lib Dems must at the very least stay competitive in come 2015 if ...
The party's next national Day of Action is taking place on Saturday 1st Feb 2014. The more individual action days we have, the more we can amplify the effect of our national campaigning for our local areas - especially those facing local elections only eleven weeks after! What do I need to do? 1. [...]
An amazing video on the NSA from the ACLU.
More than 250 people have already signed Steve Webb's online petition in support of the planning application for a multi-screen cinema for Yate. The deadline for this application is *this Friday*, 20th December. Please sign if you haven't already done so, and ask friends, family or colleagues in the Yate area who would really like to see a local cinema too. You can click here to sign the petition: http://www.stevewebb.org.uk/webb/node/115 Thanks very much!
[IMG: Whodoyouthinkyouarelogo] It is so satisfying when the Parliamentary process works well. Last week it did for me, and more importantly for a group of people to whom the Children and Families Bill is now to extend new rights. A few months ago, as a member of a select committee looking at how adoption legislation is operating, the chair and I were contacted about an anomaly in the law. Adoption has become a much more open process over the years, and in 2002 most relative were given information rights (through an agency which both counsels and assists) - but not ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Cameron's indulgence of Tory fantasies is weakening his hand in Europe Rafael Behr on Cam's EU renegotiation "strategy":? "As a way to lead the country it is desperately irresponsible." http://bit.ly/1bX4wpu Stephen Tall: Where the parties are as 2013 ends - and what they face in 2014. | Conservative Home ConHome commenter: "This is a balanced article by Stephen Tall." http://bit.ly/1bX2zJM I fear I've jumped the shark. Stephen Tall: Where the parties are as 2013 ends - and what they face in 2014. | Conservative Home My latest @ConHome column > Where the ...
I am sure that you will be as disappointed as I am with today's news that the Post Office have announced their decision to close the Crown Office in Ross Parade. Councillor Jayne McCoy, Tom Brake MP and I held a public meeting with the postal workers union CWU on 20th November to discuss the plans with local people. Everyone who attended the meeting was strongly opposed to the proposals but despite this and efforts that the council has made to help the Post Office find an alternative solution the changes will be going ahead. Post Offices services will now ...
I love Dropbox, I really do. It sits on my home PC, my laptop, my server, and my Android phones and tablets. Nothing comes close to it for seamlessly giving my machines access to the same set of files. It even runs on Linux - well... mostly. All my devices run Linux, from my Raspberry Pi to my MacBook. One of the great things about Linux is that is allows for case-sensitive file names. That is, "Bob" is a different file to "bob". However, lesser Operating Systems can't handle that. So when Dropbox senses two files or directories with the ...
Tue 17th
12:30
Heathrow: As the Conservatives' brief flirtation with anti-expansion comes to an end, the Lib Dem fi...
Overheard at a bus stop on the Kew Road last week: Visitor: "What's the matter with that plane?" Resident: "Nothing." Visitor: "But it's so low and loud, is it in trouble?" Resident: "No, this is Richmond." Overheard this morning on Sky News at 8:15: Sir Howard Davies: "A relatively small proportion of the population are affected by noise." 725,000 of us under the Heathrow flight path beg to differ. And that's 725,000 before any expansion at Heathrow is considered. 240,000 of us live within the 57LAeq contour. Translation: it's really very noisy here – just ask the World Health Organisation ...
This morning I got a grumpy email from the Social Liberal Forum, a left-inclined pressure group within the Liberal Democrats. It complained about the apparent support the party is giving to the Conservative policy of aiming for a balanced budget, and so a continuing diet of austerity. It criticised this idea for being economically illiterate. It went on that the policy was Cold comfort ... to the people having to choose between heating their homes and eating this Winter, to those forced to go to foodbanks to feed themselves and their children, to families struggling with the cost of living ...
I have just now received a letter from the Post Office advising that following the consultation the move will go ahead exactly as specified. At our public meeting on 20th November with the CWU and Tom Brake we learnt that residents were confused by the consultation which was not about whether the Wallington Crown branch [...]
A couple of years ago a development company hit a sticky wicket in Gillingham. Right in the middle of their proposed construction site was a set of Dragon's teeth, put in place to slow the advance of German armoured vehicles if the Wehrmacht had landed during World War Two. This really caught my attention at the time as my Grandfather, Corperal Alfred Pullen, had been working on the defences of Gillingham and Chatham in 1940 and had more than likely put them there with his team of Sappers. They had also put the large Concrete block outside what was the ...
It is a tradition for LDV to bring its readers copies of our new MPs' and Peers' first words in Parliament, so that we can read what is being said and respond. You can find all of the speeches in this category with this link. On 28 November, Lord Purvis of Tweed made his maiden speech in the House of Lords during a debate on broadcast media and its role in the economy. His words are reproduced below. [IMG: Jeremy Purvis] Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD): My Lords, it is a daunting task to follow the noble Lord, Lord Birt, ...
The Howard Davies report into airport expansion has been released today. Nobody, it seems, can resist playing politics with such a fundamental infrastructure programme. The battle lines have been drawn following the release of the Lord Davies report into London airport expansion. The confirmed line ups are: Boris Johnson, Vince Cable, and Zac Goldsmith vs [...]
The Wallington South monthly Ward Councillors Surgery is held on the third Saturday of the month and is usually in the Wallington Sainsburys near the lifts to Wallington Square. As this December's surgery falls on Saturday 21st December the store needs the space for its Christmas displays so we will be holding our surgery in [...]
Tue 17th
09:16The Independent View: Could Ireland's emerging healthcare reforms test David Laws' NHIS vision?
Nearly a decade ago now, David Laws MP raised the idea of evolving the NHS into a continental-style universal 'National Health Insurance Scheme' (NHIS), where healthcare would be progressively funded from dedicated income contributions, individuals could choose insurers and everyone would be entitled to a comprehensive package of set treatments within a decentralised but heavily regulated system. It was a bold and interesting proposal, which for better or worse helped define the 2004 Orange Book in eyes of many, though it has perhaps also been misunderstood and straw-manned to a degree. However, besides substantive criticisms and the understandable sensitivities that ...
xkcd: Glass Trolling. MUST start doing this :P (tags: ) 20 Amazing True Facts About Introverts and Extroverts (tags: ) Why do Americans write the month before the day? (tags: ) http://open.spotify.com/track/5Rr3HYwcuWI4i4wXtUtJlx Appropriate hang over music http://t.co/SS3wtfKg7u (tags: (from twitter) ) posted The Blood is The Life 16-12-2013 http://t.co/X9qUDI8I5R on #dreamwidth (tags: dreamwidth (from twitter) ) Transsexual PC's case against Essex Police rejected :( Horrific decision by the tribunal IMHO (tags: ) Sarah McIntyre - shark & unicorn's christmas (tags: ) http://tmblr.co/ZKWeCt11N9PMm Photo: http://t.co/WqHSaO4bKi (tags: (from twitter) ) Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine dies aged 96 With regret we can ...
Maria Konnikovan – the author of the rather good Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes – has written an article for the New Yorker which looks at the challenges of having our sleep regulated by actual clocks rather than our body clock. It includes some rather startling facts about just how dangerous this can [...]
Yesterday, I participated in the latest Tay Road Bridge Board meeting, and, later in the day, held my weekly ward surgeries at the Mitchell Street Centre and the West Park Centre. Last night, I attended the City Council's Development Management Committee. I supported a move to bring a new restaurant to the Kings Cross Road area that will bring much needed jobs to the city. Additionally, I moved refusal of a house extension in Invergowrie Drive that I felt was contrary to the council's local development plan as it impacts adversely on the neighbouring property in terms of physical overshadowing. ...
All parties agreed in 2009 to set up IPSA so that MPs would no longer have a say in setting their pay, expenses and pensions. So this is not a decision for the Government nor for MPs, it is solely for IPSA. The Government made it clear in the consultation that IPSA should take into account overall public service pay and pensions restraint when addressing the issue of MPs' pay. We are disappointed that IPSA has not done so. The recommendations on pay are not final. There will be a further statutory review by IPSA after the election. We will ...
The Liberal Democrats have taken some stick from both Labour and the Conservatives for our scepticism and in some cases, out-right opposition to renewing Trident. The two old-parties want to spend billions of pounds on maintaining a level of deterrence straight more appropriate to the cold war, whereas the Liberal Democrats believe that we should be scaling back our commitment to these submarine-based weapons. Now the Observer reports on an important intervention by a former Tory defence minister. They say that James Arbuthnot, the veteran chairman of the defence select committee and a former defence minister, who is described as ...
For people above a certain age, the name Entebbe conjours up memories of the daring Israeli raid on the airport where a hijacked plane was being held in July 1976. But nearly 40 years on, this small town on the shore of Lake Victoria is one of the mostly placid places one can be. Although [...]
No matter how schools in Wales have performed over the year, we already know that there will be a fixed amount of schools in each band. That is too crude and simplistic a system. Too often we are hearing of how parents are confused about why their children's school has been re-banded despite the fact its results have stayed the same. In too many cases, the banding system and the results of Estyn inspections are at odds with each other and this creates uncertainty and instability within the sector. An Estyn report confirmed this week that there is still not ...
