Today a friend shared a link to a Facebook page from 'Vote of No Confidence in the UK Coalition'. I have read the link but initially I didn't get past the first sentence as it began with 'why is our unelected government...?' I replied to him on my Facebook page that this is the first government since WWII in which the majority of votes have gone to the MPs in power. The reply came back that if this is the case then we need full electoral reform - we agreed immediately! He did go on to write that constituents in ...
Arfon Liberal Democrats' 2013 roundup In Bangor we're continuing to work hard for our local community, we're also providing a strong, centre-ground voice in Cardiff Bay and in Westminster, doing our best to create a stronger economy in a fairer society, reigning back the Tories and holding Labour to account. Nadolig Llawen, a Blwyddyn Newydd...
Upper Bangor Councillors are calling for additional measures to be taken by Gwynedd Council to keep our community clean. Councillors have seen an increase in complaints about litter from residents, and have seen an increase in waste and litter on Holyhead Road and around Upper Bangor following an increase in late night licensing. Whilst takeaways...
Smashy and Nicey remind us of the real meaning of Christmas.
How Britain's celebrate Christmas today is largely a product of the Victorian era. It was in the nineteenth century that we began to indulge in mince pies, trees, cards, crackers and turkeys. And during this time the ultimate trend setters were the royal family, many of who had grown up in Germany (or to be [...]
Iain Duncan Smith, a man who I used to believe had a shred of decency somewhere about him, has turned out to be a lethal combination of incompetence and vindictiveness. We only need to concentrate on the latest revelations about the continuous car crash of his career. Like a drunk driver, IDS swerves from lamppost to lamppost, wreaking havoc on other people's lives but never his own. The latest revelations just add more to what we already know. He piles misery on other people. He apparently needed an armed bodyguard to get him to the Work and Pensions select committee ...
In an ideal democratic world, all Lib Dem members should be able to attend Lib Dem conference and have equal opportunity to participate in the running and the policies of the party without personal finance being a hindrance. In reality of course conferences are expensive, and it is mostly the well-off members of the party who attend. For that reason it is likely that conference attendees are not representative of the party as a whole. We do not live in an ideal world for a very simple reason; the national party has limited funds and lots of spending commitments some ...
The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug HFR 3D http://www.thehobbit.com Director: Peter JacksonCast includes: Martin Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lee Pace, Richard Armitage and Stephen Fry. With the Lonely Mountain set firmly in their sights, the second part of this trilogy sees Bilbo and company move at a good pace through various exploits and adventures. The start of the film seems a little disjointed and isn't helped with the HFR 3D making some of the initial scenes feel as though you are just a little too close to the close-ups. But you are soon drawn ...
The Meols Ward Liberal Democrat team wish you a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2014. The local Focus team, led by Councillors John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and David Rimmer, and Focus editor Jo Barton, will continue to keep you in touch through this website, our regular Focus newsletters, and our monthly advice centres.
Mon 23rd
14:10
Still more students at University, still no apology from Streeting, Porter and the NUS
The Independent on Sunday yesterday detailed that more students are gong to university, and said the Lib Dems deserve credit for their choices. In a blistering editorial the Indy on Sunday said: When it comes to the blunt effect on student numbers, however, hard data is now taking the place of predictions. And after two intakes [...]
The judges have drawn up a shortlist of a dozen of my best Headlines of the Day from 2013. Now you can choose my Headline of the Year by voting in the poll I have set up in the right-hand column. Voting will close as 2013 does.
Churchtown's traditional Christmas tree wouldn't be here if it was up to the scrooges at Sefton Council, who had decided to axe the tree and decorations that have provided joy to children and adults alike over the years. Local Lib Dem councillors, John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and David Rimmer, have voted to use funds from the local area budget to provide the tree. Cllr Nigel Ashton said "Christmas in Churchtown wouldn't be the same without our lovely Christmas Tree. I am pleased that we have been able to make sure that there will be a tree again this year. I ...
[IMG: Fail headline on IPPR report] This is a screnshot of today's Daily Fail scare story. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? If you're a right wing tabloid wanting to persuade people that the entire populations of Romania and Bulgaria will be camping in their back yard a week on Wednesday, you are going to write that sort of headline. Of course, it's only mildly inconvenient that the actual report on which you base your, well, story is probably the right word says something a little different. And that the report is based on, err, evidence and fact. ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... Norman Baker calls for 'ministerial bicycle' over chauffeur driven car – but is refused | road.cc Another Norman says "On yer bike" http://bit.ly/1hyNvTP But Lib Dem Baker is denied a ministerial bicycle ("unacceptable cost burden") MP for Double Standards Simon Hughes does another U-turn | Mail Online Enjoy Andrew Pierce's LOLarious "womanger" joke against "feminist MP" @joswinson > http://dailym.ai/1hyLp6B Russell Brand's Christmas sermon » Spectator Blogs V good from @MichaelPDeacon: "Russell Brand's Xmas sermon" http://bit.ly/1hyGwdL Clearly fake tho as it's concise & well-edited. Mark Thompson: Debunking the "Gambling away £100 every 20 ...
Politician's should have a sense of humour, but Anna Soubry's comments about Nigel Farage's bum were probably not what was needed in the fight against UKIP. Yesterday, Tory defence minister Anna Soubry declared on Marr that UKIP leader Nigel Farage "has the look of a man with a finger up his bottom". It was, frankly, not [...]
The almost complete disappearance of Gordon Brown from public life has done little for his reputation. Without him around to remind us of the huge contribution he made to staving off financial collapse, all we remember was his Sauron-like tendencies - the all-seeing eye, the moments of jealous rage. Yet it is worth remembering that, as Chancellor and Prime Minister, it was Brown who presided over what I have come to regard as the most disastrous years for public services - the hollowing out, the digital nightmare, the targets and detailed management from the centre, the disempowering destruction of frontline ...
I love spin bowling. When I was a teenager I used to catch the coach to Northampton to watch Bishen Bedi and pretend that I understood the way he thought batsmen out. Because a large part of the spin bowler's art consists in getting into the batsman's mind. I remember Graeme Swann at Lord's last summer: in the Australian second innings he turned a ball square in his first over and terrified the batsmen so much that he took two wickets with dead straight deliveries shortly afterwards. Which brings us to Swann's retirement. To deal first with the timing of ...
Mon 23rd
12:03
Opinion: The raging south east property boom must be stopped, without harming the rest of the UK
Vince Cable speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show today warned of a 'raging housing boom' in the South East where large parts of London could end up inhabited by only 'foreigners and bankers' (boroughs such as Camden, Haringey, Hammersmith and Fulham already have an average house price to earnings ratio of over 11). One solution would be to raise interest rates making borrowing less affordable. But as Vince said today: "The danger of raising interest rates is that you hit those parts of the country which are not yet fully recovered, you push up the exchange rate and that ...
[IMG: lively how-it-all-began] How it All Began, Penelope Lively Penelope Lively is among my favourite authors. It's the Miss Marple thing, I think: the appearance of a gentle, genteel lady belies the breathtakingly acute gaze which pierces the human condition to its very soul. How It All Began begins with one small, but lives-changing moment: an old lady is mugged. This commonplace, if sad, occurrence doesn't just impact on Charlotte, the victim, but on those who surround her: her daughter, Rose, who meets and falls for an Eastern European immigrant, Anton, Charlotte is teaching to read English; Rose's employer, Lord ...
Here you go
With thanks to you for reading and thanks to the senior Liberal Democrats who grabbed their costumes and headed to the recording studio:
Remember when we used to do the Friday Five, the Divine Ms Duffett always had a section which had five posts from previous years? Well, I thought it would be good to revive the idea with a few quintets of Festive posts to amuse you. First up, we go back to 2010. Christmas feel a few weeks after the trauma of that "tuition fees" vote. Chris White wrote quite a prescient post about what the party needed to do to recover. He'd had a conversation with someone who had resigned from the party over the issue. This was also in ...
[IMG: This Is My Jam logo] Continuing my mission to inflict my musical taste on as many people as possible here is my 2013 "Jam Odyssey". My "jams" from this year all mixed together by This Is My Jam. Note that my usual "best of the year" playlist is coming soon.
It's getting to that time of the year when we vote on Lib Dem Voice's Liberal Voice of the Year - once they've completed the shortlist. And they've called for suggestions. I have a few... Of course, everyone thinks it will be a shoe in for Nelson Mandela. They are probably right. Even in his passing, he has probably done more for Liberal causes that the rest of us can achieve in a lifetime. He would be a worthy winner But he is not my vote. I think Time's 'Person of the Year' Pope Francis, would also be a fine ...
Mon 23rd
10:10
Me (and others) on the political year on Radio 4′s The Westminster Hour. (Also: a reflection o...
[IMG: WESTMINSTER_HOUR] I popped along last night for Radio 4′s The Westminster Hour's studio discussion on the political year. It's the first time I've turned up at the BBC's Millbank studios and been offered a glass of wine ahead of going live on air. I guess it was because it was Christmas – but that counts as case law precedent, right? The programme was hosted by the lovely Carolyn Quinn, with The Spectator's Isabel Hardman providing the independent commentary, and Harry Phibbs (ConservativeHome), Mark Ferguson (Labour List), and me offering semi-independent insight from our respective parties' perspectives. If you missed ...
George Eaton has written a post today in the Staggers pointing out that Vince cable did not compare David Cameron to Enoch Powell, and suggesting that the Tory outrage being expressed is all about getting Vince to resign/be sacked, essentially out of devilment more than anything else. " ' I think there's a bigger picture here. We periodically get these immigration panics, I remember going back to Enoch Powell and 'rivers of blood' and all that, and if you go back a century there were panics over Jewish immigrants. The responsibility of politicians in this situation when people are getting ...
posted The Blood is The Life 22-12-2013 http://t.co/OD4HH6gjaG on #dreamwidth (tags: dreamwidth (from twitter) ) http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24813467 TWO fascinating bits of perspective Nigel Farage won't want you to see. http://t.co/qb3fXxJpT6 http://t.co/Ghmp3Kq5gm (tags: (from twitter) ) Archive on 4, When Comedy and Politics Collide Is satire on radio & TV now harming rather than helping our politics? When Comedy & Politics Collide: http://t.co/ecs1tQ7VBZ (tags: (from twitter) ) http://ldv.org.uk/37586 LibLink: Nick Clegg: Slam the door on EU migrants and it is Britain that will get hurt http://t.co/SDO0RJiyNf via @libdemvoice (tags: (from twitter) ) Blocking categories on Parental Controls BT seems to have ...
There are nine countries to which Romanians and Bulgarians can travel to from 1 January: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Spain (only Romanians), the UK and Switzerland. There are around 6.5 million Romanians and 2.1 million Bulgarians in the age group 20-39, 8.6 million in total. So far, 1.9 million Romanians and 0.35 million Bulgarians have already emigrated to other EU countries (Eurostat 2010, Open Society Insititute Sofia, 2011), including 80,000 Romania-born persons to the UK (ONS 2011)[UK Office National Statistics] and 160,000 to Germany (German Office of Migration Studies [BAMF], 2013). Labour and skills shortages are reported from ...
The Western Mail reports that more than £100m has been paid out for clinical negligence and personal injury cases by the NHS in Wales in the past three years. They say that new figures released by six of the seven Welsh health boards and the ambulance service show £117.6m has been paid out in compensation since 2010: The information, which was provided following a freedom of information request by the Welsh Liberal Democrats, comes at a time when the NHS is under major financial strain. The figures show that Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (UHB) paid out £35.4m in ...
Last Friday, along with other Dundee City Councillors, I took part in a briefing on the subject of amenity housing, organised by the council's Housing Department. Amenity Housing is being considered for a relatively small number of sheltered housing that the department is finding hard to let and is offered (without warden services) to persons over the age of 50. This proved to be a useful briefing and exchange of views. Last month, I expressed concerns about the decision to decommission two sheltered properties at the Morven Terrace/Ancrum Place sheltered housing without advising the sheltered tenants or local councillors. Following ...
Where do I get my ideas for themes from!?Filed under: Uncategorized
Yesterday, a team of us (see some of us below!) were at Tesco Riverside, fundraising for the Roseangle Playpark Campaign, with thanks to Santa, Dundee 330 Round Table and the generous Tesco Riverside customers!
Having just been to see the second installment of The Hobbit, I think I could be forgiven for checking to see whether the film was still over when I read this piece in the Observer. It is common to see stories about 'elf and safety' at this time of year, indeed the sub-editors of local papers love them, however nobody expects an actual elvish intervention. The paper reports that Elf advocates in Iceland have joined forces with environmentalists to urge authorities to abandon a highway project that they claim will disturb elf habitat, including an elf church: They say that ...
This crossing is being 'upgraded' to 'puffin' which means that pedestrians will have sufficient i.e. more time to cross. But unfortunately these will be the new Government standard under which there are no lights on the far side of the road – only on the pedestrian side. These are widely disliked by the public. There may also be some disruption while the works take place. Further details: S097 Works Information Bulletin Template
