Here is a treat for those of you who have been with me through part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5. It is part 6 - the final part of this video from 1992.
From BBC News: An MP suspended by the Lib Dems amid claims of sexual misconduct is in hospital, his office has confirmed. A statement on Portsmouth South MP Mike Hancock's website said he had been "in hospital since the end of last week and will remain so for some time". His offices in London and Portsmouth remain open, the statement added. Mr Hancock, who stepped down from his seat on the cabinet of the city council earlier this month, underwent a number of major heart operations in 2012.
The Conservative Housing Minister Kris Hopkins made a visit to Sutton with Paul Scully, the ousted local Conservative council group leader, now with ambitions to be MP in Sutton; and spent his time criticising Lib Dem-run Sutton Council, as reported in the Sutton Guardian. However the minister proved to be ill-informed, and his criticisms unjustified. [...]
Your Museum Needs You Stockport Story Museum is searching for stories and objects from World War One for a new exhibition. The exhibition will tell the story of World War One through the eyes of people from Stockport, using diaries, letters, scrapbooks, newspaper articles and photographs. Curators are keen to include stories of local people who served their country or stayed in the town to support the war effort; and are hosting a series of open days to invite people to come along and share any objects or family stories. The first event takes place at the Hat Works Museum ...
Locals will have seen from the West Briton and heard on the grapevine that a huge leisure complex is planned for the Pool area. I still remember Camborne Cinema closing, re-opening as a Laser Tag for a while, and then after a while of being desolate, being turned into flats. The Regal in Redruth is a building with a huge amount of Cornish heritage to preserve and the Merlin group of cinemas has put a considerable amount of work in to developing the facilities and extending its offering over the past years. There are already over 250 signatures to the ...
The large pile of Focuses that had been staring at me has now been delivered. 400 for the Whickham part of my ward took me 2 hours to deliver this afternoon. Job done. It now clears the deck to go to Pelaw and Heworth ward in Gateshead tomorrow for our action day there. I think we have a load of letters to deliver. The ward used to be rock-solid Labour until 2000 when we won it. We then picked up
Vladimir Putin has passed the law that there should be no propaganda of "non-traditional sexual relationships", he says it will affect the youth of Russia. Why is it then that Alina Kabayeva, who is rumoured to be his mistress, should be the last person before those who lit the cauldron to hold the Olympic flame? The other people who carried the Torch in the stadium were Maria Sharapova, she may only have had one Olympic silver medal, but she was world number 1 in tennis and was actually born in Sochi. Three time Olympic Greco-Roman Wrestling Champion Aleksander Karelin, he ...
[IMG: image] From the Environment Agency's website. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
The latest estimate for the cost of the storms in Cornwall is more than £21 million. This is made up of £3.8 million for immediate response and making safe and £17.5 million for full repairs and remediation. But these are still preliminary estimates and are continuing to rise. In all probability they will rise again this weekend as yet more bad weather is forecast. But in better news, council leader John Pollard had a very positive meeting with the Transport Secretary this afternoon at which the government support for the extra flights I blogged about earlier was confirmed as was ...
You can't go five minutes without Cornwall's Conservatives falling out with each other. Two days ago Tory group leader Fiona Ferguson appeared to tell a council committee that she backed a plan to move all council staff out of St Austell and over to Bodmin - directly contradicting a campaign supported by local Tory candidate Steve Double to keep staff in St Austell. (For the record, the council has already committed to maintaining staff levels in St Austell.) Now she is saying that the deal to finally end the saga of council money being tied up in failed Icelandic banks ...
Survey ends soon. Anyone who uses the park- or doesn't, for that matter - should do the survey. The folk making the bid for 4million pounds towards the park from the Heritage Lottery Fund, need your input! http://www.houghtonhallpark.org/updates/
Google's doodle for the opening of the Winter Olympic Games today clearly shows support for the antidiscrimination message – with images of winter athletes against the Pride Flag. Well done Google.
[IMG: Nick Clegg LBC square] On his weekly phone-in today on LBC, Nick was asked what the Government was going to do to help gay people in Russia, in the light of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. This is what he said: I am appalled as you are about this law in Russia. It's just the most regressive law imaginable, it has a very chilling effect, intimidating effect, on many people in the lesbian, bi-sexual, gay community in Russia and elsewhere. I'm not in favour of sports boycotts, in fact I'm a big fan of winter sports. We'll be cheering ...
[IMG: Something for you - Royal Mail] I'm just spreading the word on this. This week I received one of those red "Something for you" cards from the Royal Mail, inviting me to pick up my undelivered package from the main post office in Newbury. When I went down to collect it, I noticed a poster saying that you can now get your package redelivered: You can arrange to have your item redelivered (on a day of your choice) to the same address, a near neighbour or a convenient Post Office®. You can do so here. photo by: TounoTouji [IMG: ...
Problems still arising: Dacorum, Three Rivers & Watford A5 Markyate Tring Road, Long Marston Primrose Hill, Kings Langley Railway Terrace, Kings Langley B487 Hemel Hempstead Road, Redbourn Harefield Road, Rickmansworth Park Road, Rickmansworth A4008 Stevenson Way, Watford A411 Waterfields Way, Watford A411 Lower High St, Watford Water Lane, Watford East Herts & Broxbourne B181 Roydon Road, Stanstead Abbotts B158 Lower Hatfield Road, Essendon North Herts & Stevenage A600 Bedford Road, Hitchin A507 at Clothall Road Baldock A602 Stevenage Road, Little Wymondley Gresley Way, Stevenage Old Knebworth Lane, Stevenage Burymead, Stevenage St Albans, Hertsmere & Welwyn Hatfield B651 High Street, Sandridge ...
Alice Bell: The Natural Environment Research Council has signed a 'memorandum of understanding' with Shell. You should be disturbed by this Alice Bell
Here's a fascinating 7-minute video from documentary producer Ed Stradling looking at "The lost Liberal Democrat Votes" – and what the party can do to win them back by 2015. Ed's not a Lib Dem member, so when I asked him what had prompted him to make this short film, here's what he told me: I'm not a party member, in fact I've never even voted for the Lib Dems, although I may have done had they ever stood a chance in any of my constituencies. However, I do think the Lib Dems have done a fantastic job in Government, ...
Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi has compared the situation in Gaza to the Holocaust, but will not get the same backlash as Tonge and Ward. Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi decided that
I've been an auntie for 21 years and a mother for almost 15. In that time, it's safe to say that a large part of my disposable income has gone on toys. I find nothing more frustrating than going to a toy shop and finding that the wares are segregated into boys' and girls' stuff. Often the girls' stuff is all pink and glittery and sparkly and involves dollies or little dogs or animals to put in houses. Anything remotely interesting that you can build or make rather than look after is over in the boys' section. Now, I don't ...
Fri 7th
14:15
Fraser Nelson's must-read guide to utterly and completely misunderstanding the Lib Dems' Coalition s...
Fraser Nelson has written a must-read guide to utterly and completely misunderstanding the Lib Dems' Coalition strategy today. My guess is he's reliant on Tory intelligence, which in this case is an oxymoron. Much of it is the usual half-fair/half-unfair admixture of insults regularly thrown at the Lib Dems by the right-wing media. We are, says Fraser, "a hodge-podge of a party defined by its lack of definition", "conservative in Somerset and socialist in Solihull" (has he met Lorely Burt?). Unlike the Conservatives, of course, where the small-l-liberal outlook of Ken Clarke and Nick Boles dovetails perfectly with the right-wing ...
Tom Watson is not a man known for his humility, but he has offered an apology to Andrew Mitchell, after PC Keith Wallis was sentenced to 12 months in jail
Good to see that Cornwall Council has been quick off the mark and has been working with FlyBe over the past few days to secure extra flights to London to help during the rail disruption caused by the track being washed away at Dawlish. Many thanks also to the Government and to Gatwick Airport for enabling the extra landing slots to be found and to Stephen Gilbert MP whose help has been invaluable in the process. FlyBe have guaranteed that the three extra flights each day will be priced at the same levels as their regular service and the aim ...
When Nick Clegg was at LBC today he was presented with a portrait of himself painted by a 12 year old. He promised to make it his twitter picture for the weekend. And so he did. Wanted to say a big thanks to 12yo Andrew Smith for his brilliant painting, presented to me by @lbc973. It'll be my picture for the weekend. — Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) February 7, 2014 Here is the complete picture: [IMG: nick clegg portrait] * Mary Reid is the Tuesday Editor on Lib Dem Voice.
I know that this is a "Cramlington " event, but well worth publicising
[IMG: Albany railings in 2009] Haringey is littered with ugly old rusting railings that serve no purpose and often seem to make crossing the road less safe. However the Council always seem strangely resistant to removing them. One of the worst examples is at the junction of Albany Road and Stapleton Hall Road next to St Aidan's School. Residents complain to me that the railings make it hard to cross sensibly and force people to walk out into Stapleton Hall road to go around them. Even the school agrees that the railings don't help with safety and should go. I ...
I had rather a full day yesterday and was unable to blog about my comments to one of the first public utterances of the Moderator-Elect of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Rev. Dr. Michael Barry. Rather shockingly within a day of his election he focused not on social justice, poverty or mission but appears to have spoken strongly on the issues face LGBT people within his flock. As one of those Presbyterians who has been driven from his family's church because of attitudes, assumptions and failure to listen I feel I have to speak out. While I didn't blog ...
What I love about twitter, I have more followers that newspapers have readers.I can expose publicly the nasty tricks they get up to. — Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) February 7, 2014
Lib Dem HQ have announced a number of new bulk deals (see below) . The attached PDF' s should give you an idea of what they would look like if you ordered them through HQ. Alternatively if you wanted to print them yourself, the Pageplus artwork is also available to download and localise. PDF's and [...]
That's the title of this article by Jack McKenna over at the Speaker's Chair website. Here's an excerpt in which Jack explains why he made the decision to switch from Labour to the Lib Dems: ... like a lot of politcos without a party affiliation I started to develop a "man without a country" feel. I know I was a Lib Dem in my gut and the only reason I didn't join the Lib Dems in the first place was because I was still furious over the tuition fees debacle. However this anger subsided as I realized the system was ...
[IMG: malcolm-bruce-2] After his surprise election as Deputy Leader last week, I caught up with Malcolm Bruce, someone who is well known to us in Scotland but not so much to the rest of the party. The first part of the interview, where talks about Liberal Democrat achievements in government, what he can bring to the Deputy Leader role and on Scottish independence, was published last week. Malcolm has been Chair of the Commons Select Committee on International Development since 2005. After years of economic portfolios, including Trade and Industry, the Treasury itself and Environment, he branched off in a ...
So, there I was, vaguely thinking about candidate selection, when my Twitter feed was suddenly disturbed by talk of Question Time, most of it disapproving as usual (David Starkey? Really?). But amidst the despair, one comment caught my attention like a brightly coloured fish. Belinda Brooks-Gordon, one of my Region's candidates for Europe, asked why no-one ever looks at how candidates are selected, suggesting that you could 'degender' them. I was intrigued, so I asked what she meant. An intriguing Twitter conversation followed, in which we were joined by Jennie Rigg, and it got me thinking. In the search for ...
Here's my latest Ham and High column on the new Lib Dem campaign for a council tax discount for special constables: Crime unfortunately affects the vast majority of people at some point in life. When I'm out on the doorsteps or at my local constituency surgery - I often hear awful stories from people who have been victims of burglary or fraud, for instance. On the whole, crime is currently falling - but we must remain vigilant. Figures recently revealed the Muswell Hill area to be in the top 10 UK 'burglary hotspots' - and other types of crime in ...
140021: Listed building consent for replacement signage, Head Street and Culver Street. 140046: Listed Building consent for signage, Head Street. 140218: Two-storey front extension, Kings Meadow Road. 140226: Change of use from A1 (Retail) to B1 (offices) on upper floor, Osborne Street. 140332 and 140333: Change of use from A1 (retail) to A2 (Bureau de Change), High Street. 140337: Removal of condition, Red Lion Yard. 140355: Listed building consent for refurbishment of public house, East Hill. 140357: Listed building consent for internal alterations, High Street. 140379: Single-story rear extension, Causton Road. 140382: Listed building application for blue plaque, East Hill. ...
In the high and far-off times, when there was an interesting talk on the wireless it was possible to read it in print in The Listener the following Friday. In this era of super-communications I'm not sure that a similar facility is still available but Christine Lagarde's brilliant Dimbleby Lecture, broadcast on BBC1 Television last Monday, can still be seen via iPlayer at least until next Monday. It is not to be missed. It may just have been Gallic tact which caused Mme Lagarde to praise Keynes to the skies, illustrate the development of communications by comparing the reporting of ...
A4008 Stevenson Way, Watford A4146 Leighton Buzzard Road, Dacorum A5 Markyate Primrose Hill, Hemel Hemstead M1 – 1 lane closed S/bound @ J5 Watford M25 anti clockwise – 1 lane closed @ J21 A405 St Albans A600 Bedford Road, Hitchin A602 Stevenage Road, Little Wymondley B181 Roydon Road, Stanstead Abbotts B487 Hemel Hempstead Road, Redbourn B651 High Street, Sandridge Coopers Green Lane, St Albans Tring Road, Long Marston Gresley Way, Stevenage Railway Terrace, Kings Langley A120 – Both directions Diversion: A1174, B1000, A1170, A1170 Ware High Street and B1004 A602 Hooks Cross/ Bragbury End - Diversion: B197 Monkswood Way South, ...
Yesterday was Time to Talk Day (#timetotalk), which generated some intensely personal accounts of living with mental illness. It was also the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. It was an unfortunate clash, but the Lib Dem Voice team decided to focus on #timetotalk yesterday and to cover the FGM campaign before and after the event. On Monday we reported that Lynne Featherstone was leading a mass awareness raising campaign for yesterday's International Day. In support, the Liberal Democrat MEPs had written an open letter calling on the EU to help end FGM within a generation. Here ...
This is the latest edition of my monthly webcast from the world of self-sufficiency. Despite the weather, we have been raising ducklings, hatching hen eggs, making fruit liqueurs, using up the supply of pumpkins from the autumn and skinning rabbits. You can see more on my self-sufficiency blog.
I remember reading this in The Economist a few months ago and thinking "Woah, scary". It's from an article on how "the shape of people's faces, determined by their bone structure, contributes enormously to how beautiful they are" – and to their later life chances: What men look for in the faces of women, and vice versa, is so well known that research might seem superfluous. ... More intriguingly, the presence or absence of such features [flat faces, small noses, reduced jaws and a large ratio between the height of the cranium and the height of the face] skews parents' ...
Some of my LGBT friends have been calling for a boycott of the Games that got underway yesterday with some qualification competitions, but I have said we should always let the athletes go. The main reason is that without the athletes from accepting nations being there the Russia media would not tell the truth to their own nationals about why such nations were absent. Brack Obama made a point of selected three LGB athletes to the delegation that is going to the the 2014 Games while he is staying away. But there are a small number of active athletes who ...
I am a big supporter of the NHS. I am very proud that the Lib Dem pledge not to cut NHS funding made it into the coalition agreement. I am [...]
It is now thirteen years since I confronted a prominent member of Tony Blair's cabinet at a reception about time banks. When he asked me what I was writing next, I told him I was writing about our over-reliance on numbers. He looked at me with incomprehension. "But what else can we do?" he said. At the time, I thought this just meant that - after 10,000 new central government targets promulgated in the previous four years - I had hit on something important. I still think I had. But the question keeps coming back to me. We know that ...
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... Teaching assistants can improve numeracy and literacy when used effectively | News & Events | The Education Endowment Foundation First 6 @EducEndowFoundn reports of RCTs working in 238 schools with 6,800 pupils published today http://bit.ly/1fYDhfq With a week to go in Wythenshawe, Labour's grip looks firm – Lord Ashcroft Polls Wythenshawe by-election: Labour's grip looks firm, says @LordAshcroft poll http://bit.ly/N8usWZ Lab/Ukip both up, Con/LDs both down. PMQs review: Labour caught the Great Male Heffalump of the Patriarchy in their female frontbench trap – Comment ...
[IMG: House of Lords] Ed Lowther at the BBC has identified the 'top ten peers' peers of 2013', defined as backbenchers in the House of Lords who were name-checked most frequently by their colleagues in the chamber. As he says: "This approach may not measure popularity or power, but it gives an impression of impact. " And are any of those lordly sociometric stars Lib Dem, by any chance? Of course they are. At number 4 – drumroll, please – is .... ... Tony Greaves. Sometimes described as the Lib Dems' 'oldest angry young man' he was instrumental in the ...
perils of the lady gamer: a Webcomic (tags: ) Dream house still for sale. Come on lottery win. (tags: ) Channel 4′s 'rainbow branded' message to Olympic athletes is something... It's definitely something (tags: ) Ministry of Truth » Plebgate, Ed Miliband and A few inconvenient facts (tags: ) Opinion: Liberal Democrats must let our values define our approach to mental health #timetotalk (tags: ) "What the Hell is Wrong with Me?" - I know these feels. (tags: ) Doctor Who: Legacy mobile game trailer - tempted to get this purely for the art. Pretty pretty Colin <3 (tags: ) ...
Nice place, South Suffolk. Two rather nice towns in Sudbury and Hadleigh, some gorgeous villages - Boxford and Kersey to name but two - and some sensational ecclesiastical architecture. Oh yes, it has its problems, but the locals are friendly, the politics is a little gentler and more personal, and it does have a decent liberal vote, even now. What it doesn't have is a Liberal Democrat candidate, partly due to the combination of distraction of the Local Party by county elections and partly due to the Returning Officer. And, in fairness, I've been a bit distracted too, by exams ...
David Cameron launches an offensive this morning to persuade the Scots to vote no to independence by seeking to win the hearts and minds of the English! According to the Times he will urge every Briton with a friend or family member in Scotland to persuade them to vote against independence. They add that Mr Cameron has so far refused to debate independence head to head with Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister and SNP leader. But he will court further criticism by making his first speech on the subject not in Scotland, but in London. "This is a decision that ...
The independence debate in Scotland seems from aside to be largely a matter of heart vs head. There may be strong economic arguments against independence, but the danger is - as I wrote last month - they will prove counterproductive: Were I Scottish, if anything could convince me to vote for independence it would be being told that I could not afford it. I would be strongly tempted to vote Yes just to spite such a foolish argument.Besides, as I wrote more recently, as far as Scottish independence would cause economic problems, they would be problems for the rest of ...
I don't think there are words to express how jealous I am of IGN reporter Eric Goldman. The reason for that is simple. He's been able to visit and report from the set of the upcoming Muppet movie: Asked what had her the most excited for Muppets Most Wanted, Miss Piggy replied, "Well, moi, naturally! [...]
Southwark Council officials have recently been suggesting that council vehicles crashing into cyclists 13 time in 1.2million miles driven by staff, who are professional drivers, is ok or even good. This sounded really odd to me. So after a tiny bit of digging this is what I've found. All car mileage in 2010 was 290billion miles covered by 28.7million cars. That ALL crashes of any severity of injury equalled 209,000 in 2010. Therefore for normal non professional car drivers a total crash rate of 1 crash for every 1.16million miles driven. Clearly the council spokesperson is at best talking rubbish. ...
There's now a new "ice free indoor curling group" that is meeting at Logie St John's (Cross) Church Hall on Thursdays from 2pm to 4pm. It is run by are Reshaping Care for Older People and open to all aged over 50. It is really good to see this initiative started and I wish it every success!
In a National Assembly debate on connectivity in rural Wales earlier this week, the Welsh Liberal Democrats highlighted the importance of digital and transport connectivity to unlocking the economic potential of rural areas. The Welsh Liberal Democrats called on the Welsh Government to: • examine ways in which the planning system can support the development of digital infrastructure; • improve integrated transport so that young people can access more rural apprenticeships; and • examine the benefits of a community bank structure so that those without online access can still visit a local branch. Rural areas in Wales have a huge untapped economic potential ...
Over recent weeks flooding has had a devastating effect in parts of the country. The Somerset Levels are among the most seriously affected and people have had to endure flood water and disruption for several weeks. This is incredibly hard for those affected. That is why local agencies are doing everything they can to help. The EA teams remain out on the ground operating flood defences, clearing watercourses and deploying pumps. This is one of the biggest pumping operations the country has ever seen - up to 62 pumps are in operation. Local authorities, residents and the emergency services have ...
