My friend Mike, who blogs at The Reinvigorated Programmer and Sauropod Vertebra Picture Of The Week, asked me if he could do a guest post. All opinions expressed below, especially those regarding the relative qualities of the new and old series of Doctor Who, are the responsibility of Mike... A tale of two titles: eleven [...]
Slovenia is one of the smallest member states of the European Union, but also one of the most enthusiastic. It was impressive how, at the time that former Yugoslavia was falling apart, the Slovenians asserted their Central European identity (as opposed to the Western Balkans) and celebrated, rather than lamented, their historic links with Italy [...]
Conservatives at Cheshire East Council plan to sell greenbelt land they own near Handforth Dean to build a new development of around 1800 houses. As you drive south past the A555 into Cheshire and have Handforth Dean (with Tesco and M&S) on your right, the new development would be on your left, stretching over nearly to Woodford. This is part of Cheshire East's Core Strategy & Local Plan (a planning document that sets out, among other things, where they want to build houses across their authority). The nine councillors (six Lib Dems and the three Heald Green independents) at Cheadle ...
The Lib Dem team have been working to sort out the potholes in the road around the former Tatton cinema site. If the road was normal highway it would be simple – the problem's been that it isn't. The road in front of the Tatton building is part of the site and owned by Dickens Property Group. The road to the side is unadopted – as far as we can tell it isn't owned by anyone. We think that there's now a solution to both. Dickens have agreed to patch the potholes in front of the building – we're waiting ...
We have already looked at the District, the Central, the Jubilee and the Northern.
In 1974 and 1975 England left out John Snow, their best fast bowler, because he was thought not to be a good team man. Snow was one of my favourite players and at the time I held the England captain, Mike Denness, but it later turned out to be the fault of the chairman of selectors, miserable Alec Bedser. He may have been a great bowler in his day, but by then he was a dreadful moaner. When the time came to select the party to tour Australia in 1982-3 the selectors picked three off spinners, so desperate were they ...
The Tottenham & Wood Green Journal reports: [IMG: Labour Party Red Rose logo] Pauline Gibson ... [Labour] councillor for Noel Park ward in Wood Green was the subject of complaints from three people after she subjected them to "unfair, unreasonable and demeaning treatment" by sending "widely disseminated" emails containing "accusations of racism and discrimination against them," Haringey Council's standards committee has found. It decreed that "neither the content of those accusations nor the choice of audience for them could be reasonably justified."... [The Standards Committee] asked that the matter be referred to Labour's chief whip with a recommendation that he ...
Writing Focus newsletters does not mean I get off delivering them. At the end of last week, I delivered 370 in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward here in Blaydon constituency. We are hoping to take the seat in May from the Labour who are not exactly high profile in the ward. The representation is currently split between 2 Labour and one Lib Dem councillors. With only one councillor up for
Cornwall Council has sold its claims against the insolvent estate of Landsbanki. This means that the authority has now recovered 93% of the £9m that was originally deposited with Landsbanki in 2008 by the former Restormel and County councils and is no longer a creditor of the bank. The claims were sold through a competitive auction process. The price at which the claims were sold was based on a reserve price set by the Cabinet on the basis of legal advice received from Bevan Brittan, the solicitors commissioned by the LGA to work on behalf of all local authorities to ...
Yesterday's post of Feilim McHugh's brilliant da, reminded me of a list from many years ago of 'Things Culchies Love'. If you're not Irish, you probably don't know what a culchie is: it's someone from the country; someone who engages in agricultural pursuits. I think it's pretty fair to say that Feilim's oul fella is a culchie (the giveaway was the hat). So, in honour of Feilim's da, here is,
Local government minister Eric Pickles has today announced plans to require councils to record how each councillor votes when council tax and budget issues are being decided. He says he wants councils to be more like parliament in this regard. I've got no problem with this idea. I think councils should be as transparent as possible and councillors should always be accountable for the decisions they take in the name of the public. The only thing I would say is that the process of recording how each councillor votes takes time and thought should be had before a decision to ...
The things I do/find as a Southwark Councillor! This morning commuting from East Dulwich into London Bridge I spotted a down drain pipe on Staveley Close council properties when my train stopped at Queens Road Peckham station. It was hard not to while pressed up against the door window. It's clear lots of mold and damp are present on 1st and ground floors around one broken down pip – this could be seen clearly from Station Passage or indeed passing trains. It looks like its been growing for many many months. Appalled that so many council officials commuting in and ...
[IMG: TARDIS] YouGov has the hard evidence for something that a lot of us have suspected for a long time – that "There is a strange correlation between supporting the Liberal Democrats and being a fan of Science Fiction". YouGov regularly polls its panel of 400,000 people (including me, as it happens) so has built up some rich data. The survey last year on Doctor Who showed that while 31% of the population are interested in the programme, that jumps to 41% for Lib Dem supporters. (Nick Barlow blogged about the survey at the time) Time and time again the ...
Labour cannot be trusted to build a stronger economy. They crashed the economy and have no answers on how to create jobs and get the economy growing. 'There's no money left' - Labour nearly bankrupted Britain. We are cleaning up their messLabour let the banks run wild. They cosied up to gamblers in the City of London and left us all with a huge bill when the banks collapsedLabour's numbers don't add up. Their extra spending and unfunded tax cuts would break their own debt rules and add £201bn to the UK's debt for our children and grandchildren to pay ...
The previous post, immediately below, examines why I believe over-attention to the measurable is actually counter-productive, and calls for more constructive methods of supporting professionals, especially in education. To show that this appeal is not just unrealistic "pie in the sky" from a blinkered retiree, here is a quote from an article by Danny Dorling, a professor of geography at Oxford University, in today's Guardian: In Finland there is no inspection of teachers, no league tables, pupils are not set or streamed and. . .'In four international surveys, all since 2000, Finnish comprehensive school students have scored above students in ...
I rebelled against the party whip today voting to keep the lords amendment 112 on Miscarriage of Justice compensation. My reasons are that the government position shifts the burden of proof. The lords amendment, which was supported by the majority of law lords basically creates a threshold which is that a conviction with the new evidence would be guaranteed to fail. I did not support
On Sunday, our new Deputy Leader, Sir Malcolm Bruce was despatched on media rounds. His first appearance was on John Pienaar's show on Radio 5 Live. Pienaar said that this was Malcolm's first interview since his election. I beg to differ. This interview was strongly focused on the future of the coalition, the economy and the forthcoming European and general elections. On the coalition, Pienaar painted a Godfatheresque picture of a coalition at war, behind the mattresses, all the Liberal Democrats round Malcolm's house with meatballs on the stove and machine guns under the beds. The essence of coalition politics ...
Those Labour and Conservative MPs who effectively vetoed Nick Clegg's attempt to democratise the House of Lords may wish to reflect on this article in the Telegraph which lists some of the complaints about the dining facilities in thee upper house. These restaurants receive £1.3 million in taxpayer subsidies, and yet it seems that the seared scallops, foie gras and champagne risotto are not up to scratch for some. The paper says that installing a new coffee machine without consultation caused particular ill will. This was deemed to be both "insulting" and "staggering" and prompted one peer to write: "Even ...
According to the Independent, members of the Social Liberal Forum have challenged Danny Alexander over 'straying beyond party policy' by outlining proposals to maintain the squeeze on spending throughout the next Parliament. Under the heading "Lib Dems accuse Danny Alexander of 'going native' at the Treasury as he backs George Osborne's plans for more spending cuts" Andrew Grice reports that: The Social Liberal Forum (SLF), the main pressure group on the party's Left, has accused the Treasury Chief Secretary of straying beyond official Lib Dem policy by setting out proposals to maintain the squeeze on spending until the 2020-21 financial ...
I welcome today's announcement by the Local Government Minister that she will be updating statutory guidance on how local councils must publish decisions on senior officer pay and commencing the provision in the Local Government (Democracy) Wales Act 2013 from April this year, that will give the Remuneration Panel for Wales oversight of pay rises for Chief Executives. The Minister's decision will mean that any future plans by a local authority to vary the salary of its Chief Executive that is not in line with other staff, will have to be brought to the attention of the remuneration panel who ...
The Liberal Democrats have published the agenda and directory for their Spring Federal Conference in York. The agenda and directory give timings and details of [IMG: Conference Agenda and Directory for Lib Dem Federal Conference in York, Spring 2014] motions, debates, speeches and fringe events and is available for download. This year's Spring Conference is being held at the York Barbican from 7-9 March. Policy motions on the agenda for debate by members at Spring Conference in York: A Better, Fairer, More Sustainable Future for British Pubs Making Migration Work for Britain Reform of Planning Power to the People Food ...
Sharon Bowles, Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England and Chair of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, reports agreement between the Council and the European Parliament on the EU's Market Abuse Directive. This legislation, which will impose criminal sanctions on insider dealing and market manipulation, was approved by an overwhelming majority of MEPs in Strasbourg today. Ms Bowles has consistently called for the revision of market abuse legislation to have a wider scope, encompassing transparency, clarity and harmonisation in order to act as a strong deterrent. She commented from Strasbourg: "The 2008 financial crisis, the rigging of ...
I heard a fascinating radio debate on the BBC just before Christmas in the programme The History of Britain in Numbers. It was between two writers - the green campaigner Andrew Simms and the science journalist Matt Ridley. Before I go further, I should reveal that Andrew is a friend and his book Cancel the Apocalypse is published in a cheap paperback format this week. He is also right. But the title of the book gives away why this debate was interesting. Neither Simms nor Ridley could be described as a conventional catastrophist. On the face of it, both believe ...
[IMG: david-penhaligon] Blogs are supposed to be a topical and pithy commentary on the news of the day, so it might seem strange to be talking about a Cornish MP, who was elected 40 years ago this year. However, students at Exeter University in Cornwall are building a fascinating political history project that will record local and national memories of this famous Cornishman. I met David only once, when I was 16, at the Knowsley North by-election, where the Liberal/SDP candidate was Rosie Cooper in a by-election caused by the resignation of Robert Kilroy-Silk. I wonder what ever happened to ...
As you may have heard on the news, an ongoing dispute between the Mayor of London and RMT /TSSA Unions has led to a tube strike starting this evening at 9:30pm. In my experience, tube strikes also affect buses, trains and roads as people use alternative transport for their commute. The strike will start at 9.30pm today until the morning of Friday 7th. Another strike is planned between 11th - 14th as well, depending on further developments. There are a number of tools you can use to plan an alternative route, including TFL Journey Planner and Google Maps. TFL has ...
Cyber Security is of vital national importance. As the United Kingdom places more of its infrastructure onto the Internet, bugs and glitches go from minor inconveniences to full scale national emergencies. Suppose, for a moment, that a hacker were to interrupt payment processing for banks, or tamper with the UK's water supply, or cut off the phone lines. The economic damage alone could run into the billions. Anyone discovering such a flaw could illegally exploit it for their own gain, or sell the vulnerability to the highest bidder. The computer industry's solution to this problem is the "Bug Bounty". Any ...
[IMG: WordPress logo] Good content produced at the right time is at the heart of any successful blog. Good content often needs a helping hand courtesy of sensible promotion too. All of which is to say that fiddling with the technical details can be a tempting distraction from main business at hand, but it can make a difference even if it isn't the main factor in success or failure. One of the reasons I'm sure a fan of WordPress (as used on my own blog, for my news aggregator and on various other sites I've had a hand in previously ...
Nigel Farage has disowned UKIP's entire 2010 manifesto. It is worth clicking on this link as it shows that a lot of what they say is nonsense. Nigel may take the view that their next manifesto makes more sense but will their leader in another four years totally disown the 2015 manifesto? Nigel puts forward a defence for 2010 by saying that he was not the leader. He was merely a candidate who had to support a manifesto that was nonsense. This is not a strong defence. At least Nigel now has the sense to realise that his party's 2010 ...
Shortly before the British General Election in 2010 a headteacher at a local school told me: "Well, however is the new Education Secretary cannot be worse then Ed Balls." Mr Balls, now Shadow Chancellor, was then Labour's Education Secretary. He had built up a reputation for political posturing and bullying, while presiding over new Labour's muddled education policies. I have not asked that headteacher how she thinks the new education Secretary, Michael Gove, compares to Mr Balls. I don't have to; her prediction was spectacularly wrong. Mr Gove is even more loathed by education professionals than was Mr Balls. But ...
[IMG: chris_huhne] Chris Huhne, former Energy and Climate Change Secretary and member of ALDES, has written this critique of Fracking in the Guardian. Personally, I don't like the abrasive and sarcastic tone of it but he makes some very valid points nonetheless. In particular he points out that the USA is disconnected from the world's gas market allowing a local surplus to cause gas prices (and coal prices) to drop in the USA. The UK, in contrast, is very connected indeed and even if we did produce masses of Shale Gas at reasonable cost it will not be enough to ...
I have received the following note about work to be undertaken on the railway in Birkdale
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie puts some much needed positivity into the hitherto dismal and demotivating debate on Scottish independence. We've been drowning in a deluge of claim, assertion, counter claim and denial for months now and there are times when even this determined no voter is exasperated by Better Together's inability to inspire. Yes Scotland and the SNP are just as bad. The one glimmer of soul food for the federalist has come from Willie Rennie's constant calls for the development of a consensus on more powers for the Scottish Parliament. He wants to see a common proposal ...
For many years I have thought that travel on buses outside London needed to be overhauled for children. Going back 10 years ago when my son first started getting a bus to school age 8 in Bedfordshire. This morning though has just been the icing on the cake. As any parent knows it is scary to send your young child on a bus by themselves and often it is the only option. When choosing my daughters school I had little choice, we moved at the wrong time of the school year and there is little or no capacity in schools ...
Last week we learned more about the casting for the Man of Steel sequel; which may or may not be called Batman vs Superman. Jesse Eisenberg will play villain Lex Luthor and Jeremy Irons will be Alfred. The latter decision seems popular - Jeremy Irons is after all Jeremy Irons is Jeremy Irons and can [...]
Dilbert comic strip for 02/02/2014 - replace the word "engineers" with "Liberal Democrats" (tags: ) This drag queen's brilliant response to homophobia will move you to tears · PinkNews.co.uk (tags: ) Whistle While You Work (For Nothing): Positive Affect as Coercive Strategy - The Case of Workfare | Centre for Medical Humanities (tags: ) How sexy dressing took over the world - this article features some very weird definitions of sexy (tags: ) EXCLUSIVE: Police Use Secret Facebook Group To Boast of Sexism, Bigotry & Bad Behaviour : I Acknowledge No such thing as a private conversation on the internet, ...
LibDemVoice's surveys of party members signed-up to our discussion forum have been running for close to four years now. (I posted yesterday the final set of figures from our most recent poll.) Our surveys are a way of testing members' views on a variety of hot topics. And as they've been running throughout the first three-and-a-half years of the Coalition they're also an interesting record of changing views on how the Coalition is regarded within the party. If you would like to take part in the LibDemVoice surveys, there are simply two steps you need to follow: 1) Be a ...
[IMG: image] Radio 4′s PM is my normal listening fodder on the way home. Oh, how I chortle at Eddie Mair's dry wit and his little mischiefs. But I also listen to Radio 4′s Six o'clock news – which is altogether different. Oh, I do love the chimes of Big Ben at the start. All those lovely gaps/silences. And the clear, unhurried diction of the announcer. You get all the day's news in a no-nonsense way. Particularly on days when lots has happened, it is a haven of calm. No hysteria. No panic. No "personality". Just the news. And, if ...
Residents will recall that, back in December, I had a site visit with the City Council's Chief Executive to the Harris Academy site at Perth Road to look at road safety outside the site during the school rebuilding project. I had received a number of constituents' concerns that, with the road narrowed, there is more limited space for vehicles passing each direction on what is a busy bus route and the white lines are no longer in the middle of the road. I have now had feedback from the City Council's Head of Transportation following the site visit as follows:"Whilst ...
Tue 4th
04:57
Wouldn't it be simpler for us all to just send all our personal information to the security services...
[IMG: Smurfs Found!] The latest Guardian revelations from the Snowden documents make interesting reading. They detail the labyrithine methods by which the security services track people via mobiles, social media, downloads, Angry Birds etc etc. I was particularly fascinated by this passage: GCHQ's targeted tools against individual smartphones are named after characters in the TV series The Smurfs. An ability to make the phone's microphone 'hot', to listen in to conversations, is named "Nosey Smurf". High-precision geolocation is called "Tracker Smurf", power management - an ability to stealthily activate an a phone that is apparently turned off - is "Dreamy ...
No really, this is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. It is more Irish than Bono and Sinéad O'Connor dancing The Waves of Tory down O'Connell Street in giant shamrock costumes while knocking a sliotar back and forth between them and skulling a pint with a wee chaser. It is, pure brilliance. WARNING: There is some very, erm, authentic language used here. NSFW, unless you are in
I got really annoyed on Thursday evening, when I read a comment on CNN in an article entitled 'Amanda Knox retrial verdict: Six things to know'. Firstly, why was she back on trial? Fair enough, that's a question the answer to which anyone interested in the verdict should know. Second up: Had I been eating cornflakes I would have choked on them. "Renewed questions about the
Now I've finished the latest draft of my novel (and hopefully any further revisions will be relatively minor rather than the major changes I made this time) I can get back to blogging, and to start with, here's a belated review of The Brakespeare Voyage (ebook here). This is an odd book for me to [...]
This recovery would not be happening without the Liberal Democrats. Our economy is growing because of the hard work of people and businesses throughout Britain. The Coalition's economic plan is the rock on which our recovery is being built. Three and a half years in, and the Coalition's priority is still the same: fixing the economy and cleaning up the mess Labour left behind. That task has never been simply about balancing the books. We inherited an economy that had become profoundly unbalanced. Growth was driven almost entirely by one industry: financial services. Almost exclusively from one city: London. And ...
