I suspect that Susan Gaszczak's scissors are the only ones playing that dangerous dance around her membership card right about now. Nor do I suspect that it is merely female Liberal Democrats who find their membership cards dating scissors just now. For the last year there has been a sense of unease within the party. There have been some who no matter what think that nobody in power within in our party, or maybe just no Lord Rennard, could have possibly done anything that the accuses were saying went on. There were others who had the knives drawn from the ...
Con seat. Death. Prospective Candidate: Will Jones
Recently I applied to Ealing Council to protect Marie's Store, Cunnington Street by getting the site classified as a site as an Asset of Community Value. This should help reduce the chances that any developers converting the popular local shop into flats. The suggestion for this came from a resident in Hounslow who said the new law had recently been used to protect a well loved local pub. The Southfield Liberal Democrats Councillors have linked in with the local residents association, Acton Green Residents Association, on this issue before. Getting the site confirmed as an Asset of Community Value could ...
Those with strong stomachs can also watch them eating a rat and a squirrel.
Tonight Susan Gaszczak has said on Channel 4 News that it's time Lord Rennard goes. Gaszcak sits on the party's powerful Federal Conference Committee, as is considering her position in
This evening, at an inaugural debate at the new Network of Students (NOS) building in Whitehall my fellow London LibDem Euro-candidate Turhan Ozen and I debated the Consequences of the UK's Euroscepticism with young people from Turkey, Russia (Chechnya), Ireland, the UK and elsewhere. I explained that when I was first sent to Brussels by [...]
Another day with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer. These days, of course, David Grace looks more like a Rear Admiral than a Wing Commander. Tuesday I sometimes think if that it were not for sales of my own works - I run a scheme whereby estate workers can have the cost of them deducted from their wage packets - the bookshop in the village would have closed long ago. For these days the skies over it are black with squadrons of drones delivering books from a warehouse near Bletchley direct to their purchasers. Last night we held a meeting in ...
Oh boy. This is pretty darn ugly isn't it? I will not sit here and type about what he did or didn't do. I don't know so I won't comment on it. However one thing is what happens next and I feel as though I can have an opinion on that. No one man (or woman) is bigger than the party. The party would be better off if Lord Rennard left the party. That is the plain and simple truth. If he feels as though his membership and the fact he is a Lib Dem peer is more important than ...
Tomorrow's South Shropshire Journal announces the long expected end of the current town bus services in Ludlow. It is a headline that will create huge anxiety for regular bus users around the town. Ludlow's buses are a shambles and a disgrace. The service is unreliable, inaccessible and uncomfortable. And it looks as though it could [...]
The Government's Transparency Bill is nearly complete. It is a very different Bill from that introduced to the House of Commons in the autumn. Full marks to Tom Brake who, while robustly rebuffing the more hysterical accusations about the Bill, has listened, and worked hard inside government to secure a sensible package of improvements. The first was in the House of Commons, where MPs voted to ensure the definition of non-party campaigning remained the same as for the last thirteen years. If this were a 'gagging law', then so too was Labour's PPERA of 2000. In the Lords, we have ...
Have I got this right? The Liberal Democrats asked Alistair Webster to decide whether there was a better than even chance that an inquiry would find beyond reasonable doubt that Chris Rennard had intended to harass women in the party. So we didn't hold an inquiry: we asked a QC to guess what would happen if we did. If it were not so damaging to the party's reputation, our adoption of this byzantine approach would be comic. This is a difficult issue for me to write about, because I have known Chris Rennard for almost 30 years. When I first ...
Over at the Telegraph, Alison Goldsworthy, Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrats' Federal Executive has written a thought provoking piece about the way young women are treated in the political bubble that is Westminster. She paints an unedifying picture of life inside the Palace, across all parties: Tales of parliamentarians in their 50s, heavy breathing that they may be giving up their seat, or promotions would be on offer whilst getting uncomfortably close to female staffers in their early 20s are commonplace. Go to the bars of Westminster most days of the week then you will see it in action. ...
Mathew Oakeshott was on Newsnight stating the blindingly obvious last night. A party which was re-formed in the image of Jo Grimond's vision of re-aligning the left and which merged with the Jenkinsite wing of Lab has mostly centre-left activists. Such a statement would have not cause any comment over most of the last 70 years. Of more interest was David Steel and Alan Beith taking part in the Radio 4 programme called The Reunion . If you listen to the programme you will find David Steel describe the present coalition as 'unnatural' because it is with the Right. The ...
It looks like it's the Daily Mail's Tim Shipman who will be replacing Isabel Oakshott on the Sunday Times. Tim Shipman is new Sunday Times Pol Ed — Media Guido
The Lobby is the the elite of the elite of political journalism, and the rules around it are totally arcane in a 21st century media environment. The Lobby is the
January 26, 2014 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM Meet at Folkestone Rowing Club, Sandgate Meet from 9.30 at the Folkestone Rowing Club for a complimentary warming coffee, and then 2 hours of beach cleaning from 10am - noon for the Marine Conservation Society. All welcome - the more, the merrier! [IMG: Sandgate Beach Cleaning Morning Poster] Published and promoted by Tim Prater, 98a Sandgate High Street, Folkestone, CT20 3BYPrinted (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
[IMG: OU student numbers 2008/09 - 2012/13] Overall student numbers have fallen by 16.4% in a year. Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
Report by Dr M December 11, 2013 I was... disappointed that he has developed exertional angina over the last three or four momths. A chest x-ray performed last month showed evidence of chronic asirways disease but nothing else. Clinic examination today was unremarkable, althouh he does have bilateral carotid bruits. BP was 139/60 mmHg and his resting 12-lead ECG is normal. I have intensified [his] anti-anginal regime today by adding Imdur 30 mg daily. I will see him [on January 29, 2014] and if his angina persists then I will arrange a coronary graft angiogram. Vascular access may be a ...
For the record, I abhor anyone who uses their power to take advantage of others and that includes men over women, let alone men who are in positions of authority. Chris Rennard denies any wrongdoing and an independent review of the evidence has concluded that there is less than a 51% chance that the allegations could be proved beyond reasonable doubt. As I still hold the record as the highest-ranking openly gay police officer in the UK, hopefully people will accept a degree of neutrality in my observations. What does a political party do, or any employer for that matter, ...
Thu 16th
13:58
Nick Harvey MP writes... Robert Gates poses stark defence question to UK: Do we want to be a real mi...
Former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was on Radio 4's Today programme this morning decrying the UK's defence cuts. He said the squeeze meant the UK could no longer be a 'full spectrum' military partner of the US, acknowledging that our relationship with the US has been fundamentally altered. A sceptic would quickly dismiss the comments of a man currently promoting his memoirs, but Gates makes a wider point about what exactly we want to be doing with a smaller defence capability. Both Labour and the Tories continue to cling to the idea that we should maintain a full-scale Cold ...
Here's today's hand-picked selection that caught my interest... The spending battleground Overseas aid, climate change and welfare benefits: top 3 areas of spending the public wd prioritise for cuts http://bit.ly/1hugwAv Reading Politics · Scotland's Independence Referendum: Do We Already Know the Result? Want to win a referendum? Best be on side of 'No', then: "uncertain voters gen end up sticking with devil they know" http://bit.ly/LiRAB8 European elections: UKIP closes in on first place How long before Ukip polls in 1st place for May's Euros? Interesting too from Kellner on YouGov polling methodology http://bit.ly/LiQbui 'Politically useful' science is no use for ...
[IMG: con home cartoon] Here's my latest The Other Side column for ConservativeHome, published here on Tuesday. My thanks as ever to the site's editors, Paul Goodman and Mark Wallace, for giving a Lib Dem space to provoke – constructively, I hope. Which past general election will the next one most closely resemble? There are, lest we forget, just 16 months to go – that's 477 days, if you want to make your own political advent calendar to count down to Election Eve, 6 May 2015. I'm going to put in a massive caveat from the top – I'm not ...
CentreForum today published 'Making allowances' – a paper all about the Lib Dems' flagship policy of raising the income tax Personal Allowance. Here are some of my conclusions – some obvious, some more obscure – to help inform future tax cuts. 1) The costs are huge. The coalition's Personal Allowance increases have cost £11bn, and the Lib Dems' minimum wage tax target would cost at least the same again. With this combined total, we could (roughly) reduce VAT to 15%; scrap council tax or business rates; easily deliver quality universal childcare; or pay for a project like HS2 every year. ...
Thu 16th
12:25
Still my favourite non-electronic gadget: a Stirling engine for your coffee/tea/hot chocolate
Welcome to my toy Stirling engine. It gets a good turn of speed with just a small nudge to overcome initial friction. Turn up the volume to hear just how fast it is turning by the end:
Thu 16th
11:45Phil Bennion MEP writes: It's time we had a sensible, evidence-led debate on EU freedom of movement
Freedom of movement is one of the EU's most cherished achievements. It has given millions of people the opportunity to work, study and retire across the continent and has brought huge economic and social gains. But the recent debate has taken a serious turn for the worse. Both the Conservatives and Labour are dancing to the tune of UKIP. It falls to Liberal Democrats to set the record straight and defend the benefits that freedom of movement brings, including for the 2 million or so British citizens who live across the EU. These are not just retirees in Spain or ...
The Independent reports on more problems with the ill-starred, ill-advised and incompetent policy being pursued by the UK Government of culling badgers. They say that the Government has admitted that distorted data may have significantly exaggerated the number of cattle infected by tuberculosis in Britain, raising fears that its badger cull pilot could have been based on erroneous information: It is the second time that a problem with the Sam IT system, which measures data on cattle, has been exposed as faulty in just over two years - inflicting a further blow to the project's credibility. It follows a private ...
Today is a sad day. I, along with many other people, will be attending the funeral at Salford Cathedral of Paul Goggins, the Labour MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East. [...]
Thu 16th
10:55First Euro poll of 2014 shows Lib Dems at 7%. Can we make being 'The Party of IN' work for us by the...
The first poll this year asking how people will vote in May's European elections has been published today by YouGov. It gives the following headline ratings compared with the last elections in 2009: Conservative 17% (-11%) Labour 24% (+8%) Lib Dem 7% (-7%) Ukip 19% (+2%) Feed these numbers (plus those for the Greens, SNP/Plaid and others) into euroelection.co.uk and here's what it means for numbers of seats: [IMG: euro results forecast 2014] The Lib Dems would be reduced from 11 seats to just 4, if these numbers are to be believed. The Tories number of MEPs would be cut ...
Mike Smithson has a post on the Political Betting website talking about the pretty far from perfect voting system to be used in the elections to the European Parliament on May 22nd. He says that the lack of a link between an individual vote and a named MEP depresses turnout. I agree, but the most personal elections (for Police and Crime Commissioners) did nothing to boost turnout either. Mike's point - which is valid - is that the use of the closed regional list system puts the power in the hands of party selection machines rather than voters. A vote ...
Firstly – I want to wish you and your family a happy new year! As we enter 2014, we are just four months away from both a European Election and local elections. Nick has asked me to chair the local election campaign and I agreed because of a couple of reasons. I believed we had [...]
I went to a school reunion recently. We are middle-aged, middle class survivors, in a sense. Some of our fellow public schoolboys from the 1970s have died. One or two have even committed suicide, but we are still around, largely happy, not always thriving, but settled. What is most unexpected about the small group of us who meet once a year, upstairs in a bar in London's Covent Garden, is how diverse we are. There are two builders, a furniture restorer, a very successful barrister, a medical consultant, an alternative health therapist, and a writer (me). There is also a ...
Where did George Osborne get his figures from? Who writes his speeches? A quick look at Wikipedia offers four sources of data for GDP per capita in 2012. The first and simplest comes from the IMF (as it omits odd places such as Monaco and Liechtenstein). Of the top 30 no less than 14 are members of the EU, 7 are major oil producers, 3 are the great trading hubs of Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland and the remaining 6 are Australia, Canada, United States, Japan, Iceland, and Israel. At 23rd in the list the UK is the 11th ranked ...
There is a reality TV series on Channel 4 called Benefits Street which purports to reveal 'the reality of life on benefits'. I have now watched two episodes - with horror. The word benefit could relate to pensions or child benefit or numerous benefits other than unemployment, but this series targets those who aren't working. There is nothing wrong with that and I am sure that this documentary is factual in its way, but when I receive facts I would like to think that I could come to a balanced conclusion. Channel 4 have picked on individuals who have no ...
Ali Goldsworthy's Statement on Lord Rennard. (tags: ) An Oscar-Nominated Director Gets Real About How Women Are Treated in Hollywood (tags: ) Why You Make Bad Decisions When You're Attracted to Someone (& tips on how to stop doing it) The bit about picking up bad habits from new partners... *eyes bitten nails mournfully* (tags: ) The three - er wait, I mean six - Rs - in which @pjgoodman answers my meme (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Early this morning I was interviewed on Voice of Africa radio countering some of the negative propaganda in Britain about migration from other European Union member states, notably from Bulgaria and Romania. On 1 January, the temporary restrictions on the free movement of labour from those two countries were lifted and there were scare stories [...]
[IMG: Lib Dem leadership contest. Photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chris_and_Nick_01.jpg - some rights reserved] Edition #43 of Liberal Democrat Newswire came out last week, looking at the chances of a Liberal Democrat leadership election being called this year, and the key party elections for major posts that we do know for sure will happen. It's now also available online to read here. If you would like to receive the next edition of Liberal Democrat Newswire direct to your own inbox as soon as it is published, just sign up here. It's free! You can unsubscribe whenever you want using the link ...
Yesterday saw the conclusion of an investigation by Alistair Webster QC into the alleged behaviour of Chris Rennard. I'm not going to comment on the outcome, the validity of it or the party procedures. On last night's news Nick Clegg said: "he won't be playing any role in my General Election plans for the campaign [...]
There are reports that the Low Pay Commission is to recommend an above inflation increase to the National Minimum Wage. The Conservatives are seeking to claim credit for prospective increases. The National Minimum Wage is currently set at £6.31 compared to £5.93 for those aged 21+; £5.03 compared to £4.92 for those over 18. The 'Living Wage' is said to be £7.65 per hour outside of London, £8.80 inside. Liberal Democrats at the last election stood on a platform of reducing taxation for low earners- the Conservatives prioritised tax cuts for the wealthy, and Labour are the party that abolished ...
This view of the Hawkhill in Dundee is taken from the West Port, looking west. Thomas Aitken's public house, The Globe, is listed in the Dundee Directory as Nos. 57 and 59 West Port, and is still so named today. Behind it is Johnston's Lane. No. 1 Hawkhill is listed in the Dundee Directory as John Mathieson, broker, which may have been the West Port Loans Office. M. Boland & Co.'s clothiery was Nos. 20 and 24 Hawkhill.
Thu 16th
05:58
Two in three Cardiff residents wouldn't cope with monthly bin collections Council figures show
Responses to Cardiff Council's own consultation on waste collections have shown that just 27% of residents believe they would be able to manage if Cardiff Council push ahead with their controversial plans for monthly rubbish collections. This follows on from the massive response generated by a petition lead by Jenny Willott MP for Cardiff Central, which has been signed by almost 1,000 people who are against this change. These figures should be the message Cardiff Council needs to ditch this absurd proposal. Two thirds of Cardiff residents say they wouldn't be able to cope if their general rubbish is collected ...
