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 start this week by apologising to anyone who is waiting for an email or letter from me. I have been engaged in a project at work which has taken up all my time, so that most nights I have been finishing until about midnight. As a result I have over 100 emails awaiting a response. I will start doing them this evening and hopefully catch up over the next couple of days. 1. ...
It was my great pleasure, on Saturday, to present certificates to the winners of the first cake competition held at the Centre of Pendeen. Men, women and children rose to the challenge to give an excellent array of cakes. A fun, fundraising enterprise by our local community for our local community. [IMG: Centre of Pendeen Cake Competition] Centre of Pendeen Cake Competition 2014 – women [IMG: Centre of Pendeen Cake Competition 2014 Men and Children] Centre of Pendeen Cake Competition 2014 Men and Children The post "Let Them Eat Cake" (attributed to Marie Antoinette) appeared first on Cllr Sue James ...
[IMG: The Clock House, Newbury] The Clock House, Newbury Available on BBC iPlayer until 2099, Radio Four's The Long View comes from Speenhamland, Newbury. It's a fascinating discussion, starting at the Clock House in the Broadway, and then continuing in Newbury Museum. Well done BBC! Here's the programme write-up from iPlayer: Jonathan Freedland presents the programme which looks at the past behind the present. Although there's unease in the air and many caveats included in any reports on the subject it would seem that the British economy is now strengthening. And yet a new challenge is growing, the growing number ...
Quite apart from the impact on both his accusers and Lord Rennard himself, there could be wider casualty from the last week's events. Just consider both Nick Clegg's bemoaning that party rules constrain him from acting as he would wish to, and media commentators condemning him as weak for being unable to simply throw Rennard out of the party by personal diktat. The potential casualty is party democracy itself. There will be those who will point to the embarrassments caused and say that they would not have happened if the leader had been able to act 'decisively' unconstrained by the ...
Sun 26th
20:46
Is Liberal Democrat blogging dying, becoming more 'concentrated', or simply less fashionable?
I was idly browsing Lib Dem Blogs recently, as one does, when a thought crossed on mind. "Is it me, or does the site seem less busy of late?". And so, given my fascination with numbers, I thought that I should take a look... I've taken today's date as a reference point, and here are the numbers of active blogs in each year since 2006;2006 - 552007 - 1072008 - 2222009 - 1862010 - 2312011 - 2352012 - 2302013 - 1772014 - 126What I find interesting is that the drop in the number of active blogs has come in the ...
On 7 March 1981 Vienna by Ultravox peaked at number 2 in the UK singles chart, kept from the top sport by Joe Dolce's Shaddup You Face. It is customary to mourn this as the greatest injustice in the history of British pop, but I am not so sure. Vienna verged on the pretentious and I belong to a generation who could never take Midge Ure seriously because be began in Slik - the poor girl's Bay City Rollers. This is the record that was at number 3 that week: Roxy Music's Jealous Guy was the best tribute to John ...
[IMG: John Farquhar Munro] John Farquhar Munro, who represented Ross, Skye and Inverness West in the Scottish Parliament from its creation in 1999 until he stood down in 2011 has died at his home at the age of 79. He was never shy about speaking his mind and voting against the rest of the Liberal Democrat group when he felt it necessary. Scottish Leader Willie Rennie, who knew him well from the early days of when he was our Chief of Staff in the Parliament paid a warm tribute to him: John F was a canny, crafty Highlander who calmly ...
I was intrigued to see this tweet appear in my Twitter feed yesterday morning. Thank you @MittRomney for slow jamming the news with us last night. Ohhhh yeah.... http://t.co/NJK90niIKM — jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 25, 2014 I couldn't help but wonder what on earth would prompt Mitt Romney to emerge, over a year after his defeat in the 2012 Presidential election, to slowjam the news
Sun 26th
20:01
Lib Dems select local Councillor Mary Di Mauro to stand in Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election.
Promoting Small Business Saturday with Mary Local Liberal Democrats have tonight (Sunday January 26th) selected Northenden Councillor Mary Di Mauro to be the Liberal Democrat Candidate in the by-election following the death of Labour MP Paul Goggins. Mary was a secondary school teacher for ten years. She lives in Northenden village with her husband and two children. Mary has represented Northenden ward on Manchester City Council since 2010. Mary Di Mauro said: "I am very proud to have been selected to fight Wythenshawe and Sale East for the Liberal Democrats in the by-election. I have lived locally for 20 years ...
Speaking at the Holocaust Memorial service in Southport John Pugh acknowledge all that was being done by the British government in relation to the crisis in Syria. Nevertheless John urged the government should do more a set example to the other countries and accept a higher number of people displaced by the crisis.
Charles Kennedy and John Farquhar Munro (www.charleskennedy.org.uk) It is with a great deal of sadness I have learned of the passing of John Farquhar Munro, the former MSP for Ross, Skye and Inverness West. John was elected to the new Scottish Parliament in 1999, and held his seat until retiring in 2011. A keen sailor, a fisherman and a Gaelic speaker, he was an ideal Highland MSP. A passion for such issues as land reform, crofting, ending tolls on the Skye bridge made him an authentic voice for Highland interests in Holyrood. This, naturally, should not have been surprising given ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 362nd 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 (19-, 25 January 2014), 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. I am ...
I see from the date of my previous entry that it has been lamentably long since my last post. One of my new year resolutions was to ensure I got back to posting more frequently so here goes...... As some one who spent 5 years looking after Community Safety policy at the council I had, and hope to continue to have, a very close working relationship with the Edinburgh Police. In that time we slashed crime and antisocial behaviour, launched the first Hate Crime strategy in Scotland and rolled out various far reaching reforms in partnership working. Friday saw the ...
On Tuesday 21st January a Special meeting of the Council's Childrens, Families and Schools Scrutiny was held to consider a Call In request by West Hampstead Councillors that the Cabinet decision to develop the Liddell Road site to accommodate an expanded Kingsgate School to be funded by the sale of 140 flats and business space. The Ward Councillors John Bryant and Gillian Risso-Gill were supported by three deputations and an audience of concerned local residents. John Bryant presented the Education case (that should have been the main concern to the CSF Scrutiny): - No education arguments have been presented by ...
Back in October Liverpool's Mayor decided that we shouldn't have bus lanes in Liverpool. Or rather he announced a nine month experiment during which the bus lanes would be suspended and the Council would see if that made things better or worse. At the time there was quite a bit of controversy - not least because it became clear that the Council had no real data on traffic movement and passenger numbers in bus lane areas. The Council however said that it was a real experiment and there was a consultation to get feedback on whether the suspension of bus ...
I really wanted to title this post "Well, that explains alot," but it doesn't. This post explains alot. The book I'm talking about explains something much less important than that. It explains why a terrible broadway musical was terrible. I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Okay, context: Three years ago, Becca, Feather and I went to see Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark while it was in previews. To say that this was a terrible Broadway musical is not in fact accurate; when we saw it, it was two terrible musicals: Spider-Man, a terrible musical retelling of Sam Raimi's 2002 ...
Sun 26th
15:49Labour: is messaging enough to re-establish credibility, and how much does it actually matter?
Recent pronouncements on benefits from Rachel Reeves, and on taxation from Ed Balls, have come in for much criticism from their political opponents, and I myself have not been particularly convinced. But, I am reminded, I'm not the target of their messages, as I'll be voting Liberal Democrat anyway. And it makes me wonder, are we in danger of rather missing the point, which is that Labour don't necessarily need to persuade that many people, if current polling is to be believed. There is a lot of talk amongst the political 'chatterati' that, despite the current numbers, Labour might not ...
Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 750 party members responded – thank you – and we've been publishing the full results. (There were a couple of results I ran out of time to publish during the Christmas holiday period – I'll be publishing them this week.) Lib Dems oppose married couple tax-breaks by 62% to 22% The tax break for married couples and civil partners was a Conservative election pledge that has lain dormant during Coalition. Not ...
Don't forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 31 January at 7:00 p.m in Costa Coffee, Victoria Square. I will be wearing my pink Faith and Pride hoodie so you can recognise us. More detail....
Many thanks to the 21,900 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... We should support Lib Dem candidate Maajid Nawaz in the face of death threats (134 comments) by Stephen Tall Internal investigation in to Lord (Chris) Rennard: new statement issued by Alistair Webster QC (37 comments) by The Voice Opinion: What does bringing the party into disrepute mean? (110 comments) by David Howarth Tim Farron's email to Lib Dem members explaining the suspension of Lord Rennard (62 comments) by The Voice Suspension of Lord Rennard (29 comments) by The Voice QC's report ...
The political parties have recently been making more of their post General Election plans for the economy. There are very different ideas on the table for taxes, benefits, regulation of business, borrowing and investment. When the media reports on this it is clear to people that George Osborne is Chancellor, it's clear that Ed Balls [...]
[IMG: Cecile Park potholes] I've been an intermittent low-key user of Google+ since its launch, which, given its (in)activity levels also makes me one of the most active users of Google+ this side of Jupiter. Recently I have been giving it a bit more of a whirl, especially since WordPress JetPack was updated to allow automated posting of blogs to G+. I'm also experimenting with pages, for which the obvious subject is of course my love of potholes and of Haringey Council's bureaucratic wonders. Hence: Haringey Council #WorstCouncil, featuring that great animated gif of a rubbish truck.
Application No: 13/05083/OUT 1 The Beeches, Odd Down, Bath, Bath And North East Somerset, BA2 2UX This is an outline application with all matters reserved for erection of a dwelling on domestic curtilage plot to the north of 1 The Beeches in Odd Down within Bath World Heritage Site. The submitted indicative plans show a dwelling of similar proportions to the existing dwelling attached
I guess many people go into politics out of a sense of frustration; I know that's true in my case, in particular frustration that the debate about Europe in the UK is so skewed by the ignorant and at times malicious content of rags such as the Daily Mail and the Daily Express and, more [...]
Service 4 (Kingsway - Bathampton): · The route and timetable of this service is changing. · Specifically buses will start and terminate at Kingsway (instead of Bath Riverside) from 2 February while the section of route between Bath city centre and Bath Riverside will be covered by Service 2 instead (see details above). · Buses will run every half an hour Monday
We haven't seen many nice things written about Liberal Democrats in the last couple of weeks. However, in today's Independent, Jane Merrick outlines reasons that we can be cheerful. First she describes what a Liberal Democrat MP overheard on a train from two people talking about the party: The MP (who was relieved to be unrecognised by his fellow commuters) listened as these two seasoned observers took apart the Lib Dems. One of the men said: "They're always in trouble, aren't they?" "Yeah, there was that bloke with the dog," the other chipped in. "Who was that one who, you ...
Thanks to all those who have contacted me about the obscene graffiti on the boarded up Birkdale Library. I have reported the matter and hope for swift act
Every Liberal Democrat will want to read Jane Merrick's column in the Independent this morning if only to cheer themselves up after a few traumatic weeks. She tells us How We Can All Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Lib Dems: 1 It is an open, democratic party. Yes, doing everything by committee and not allowing the leader much power over internal discipline has been a disaster. But it is a thing to celebrate that, generally, members and activists have a say in how their party is run - they are a true grassroots movement. The Lib Dems have ...
I am just looking at a chart reflecting the outcome of an opinion poll which shows that at this particular point in time the public blame Labour more than any other party for the cost of living crisis. Of course that may change and we should not use it as an excuse to continue to help people through some very difficult times, but it does show the hurdles Labour still have to jump before they can regain credibility on the economy. The point is that Labour did overspend before the 2008 crash as this graph shows: By 2006 Labour had ...
[IMG: spurs yid army] In the last few days, the Crown Prosecution Service has taken the decision to charge three Tottenham Hotspur supporters with "using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour". The charges relate to the use of the word "Yid" by the fans. The decision to charge the fans should be a cause of major concern to anyone who values freedom of speech and freedom of expression. For those unaware of the history and context behind the use of the word by Spurs fans, it's worth a quick explanation. Tottenham, seen by opposing fans to ...
The following is from WEST Midlands Police and benefits constituents who have 125cc Motorbikes Motorbike marking a UK first WEST Midlands Police are the first force in the UK to offer free motorcycle DNA marking for cyclists in a bid to beat bike thieves. Thieves are stealing 125cc motorcycles and breaking them up for parts. The parts, which are not individually marked, are then sold
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... Jane Merrick offers some reasons for the Lib Dems to be cheerful, counts the cost of a free TV licence, and naming names – Voices – The Independent 6 reasons to love the Lib Dems (not by me, by @janemerrick23, brave lady) http://ind.pn/1eSNvgM The Liberal Democrats face a true test of liberty | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer Excellent from @nickcohen4 > "LDs shd defend freedom of speech in all cases except when speakers espouse violence." http://bit.ly/1eSLzoq Gagging bill defeat: ...
Sun 26th
09:19
LibLink: Sarah Ludford MEP: Despite their claim to be a libertarian party, UKIP have a shocking reco...
Over at the Huffington Post, Sarah Ludford MEP has been looking at UKIP's record on LGBT rights. She first shows that they really don't get it: On the Ukip website, it states "As a libertarian party, we are entirely at ease with their (LGBTI community) choice and wish all of them well." I question the appropriateness of this folksy language and the implication that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, particularly considering that LGBTI citizens continue to be the target of around 100 hate crimes per week. But even if it was well intentioned, why then do we consistently hear voices ...
Fidelis et mortem: making sense of Dracula's family motto by @PJGoodman Hammer geekery + Latin grammar on a Saturday morning? Yes please :) (tags: ) Campaigners wield marker pens in war against punctuation cull | UK news | theguardian.com (tags: ) This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup | Arianna Simpson (tags: ) UK Government launches consultation into future of civil partnerships · PinkNews.co.uk (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
My cat, Mittens, loves tuna. We love giving her tuna. She purrs whilst she eats it, and it disappears really quickly. However, it's very difficult to persuade her to eat anything else after she's had some tuna. We recently had a tuna-off, which seemed to go on for days; she simply refused to eat anything that wasn't tuna. We were getting quite worried, and eventually managed to encourage her to eat another type of fish instead. In case you're wondering, it was cod. Apparently cod is not as unhealthy for cats as tuna. We probably spend more on food for ...
Wondering what to read in today's papers? Then head over to The Independent and take a read of Jane Merrick's piece about the Liberal Democrats: [IMG: Jane Merrick] It would be all too easy to deride Nick Clegg's party. So I won't. Instead, put aside for a moment all the - serious - shenanigans and lurid allegations, and I am going to tell you How We Can All Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Lib Dems. 1. It is an open, democratic party. Yes, doing everything by committee and not allowing the leader much power over internal discipline has ...
Our look at Pentecostalism would not be complete without examining one of its most distinctive features: speaking in tongues Writing in the New York Times, the anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann offers a defence of the practice based on her experiences studying it in Accra, Ghana: What dawned on me in Accra is that speaking in [...]
I've recently been in correspondence with Stewart Heaton about his excellent new Dark Dundee website. As the site suggests:"Take a walk with us as we explore myth, legend and many a dastardly deed from the Dundee of old. Who knows what you might find whilst investigating Dark Dundee?"You can see the site at www.darkdundee.co.uk.
This photograph of the north side of Dundee's Nethergate at the junction with Tay Street Lane dates from after 1891, after which point numbers in that section were altered after extensive building works. The image may date from shortly afterwards. As there are no names on any of the shops, it is difficult to date the picture with any greater accuracy. The low building at the righthand side (and east) housed the galleries of J. Gonnella & Co., a family of Italian sculptors, several of them consuls. The corner establishment was the wine and spirits business belonging to Peter Fenwick. ...
St Albans residents will be able to cut their bills and help the environment at the same time with help from a local county councillor. Councillor Chris White (St Albans Central) has allocated £500 from his locality budget to Transition St Albans (TSA). The funding will help engage neighbours in working together to cut their carbon footprint and household bills through the Transition Streets project. Cllr White said: "Climate change isn't going away and it has to be tackled at every level. I am glad to be able to help local people find ways of reducing their household energy use". ...
