If this list from The Independent really represents "top ten most interesting politicians" active in the UK then we are in more trouble than I thought. Grant Shapps FFS?
Adrian Sanders MP makes the case for retaining this coastal route as the mainline to Plymouth and Cornwall in a comment on another post.
These two posters are currently being displayed on adjacent bus stops in Bristol City Centre... Andrew
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. 1. A Greener Broxtowe The borough council have looked at our progress on creating a greener borough at a meeting this week. The headline figures are that we are we are well on our way to our target of planting 100,000 extra trees in the borough, and this should be achieved by the end of 2016. By that point we also hope to have seen a 50% increase in composting levels and a decrease in ...
The Minority Conservative Administration in charge of Cambridgeshire County Council is moving ahead with it's money-raising plan to begin charging people who park and the various Park & Ride sites in Cambridge. In order to implement these changes the County Council is required to advertise them in the press - this has now happened (see below). If you have a view please contact the address at the end of the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) below, I'll be contacting them and making the following representations on behalf of Bar Hill residents; This charge will increase congestion and create new on-street parking ...
The NHS data sharing scheme seems either sloppily organised or deliberately designed to keep opting out to a minimum. The leaflet of information about the scheme arrived in my area about two weeks ago. It was unaddressed so it is possible that houses in areas more difficult to reach didn't get one (as often used to happen in the days when election leaflets were unaddressed). After describing the scheme and its alleged benefits, on its fourth page the leaflet states that if you don't want your (anonymised, so they say) medical history to be disclosed to all in sundry you ...
From the Bath Chronicle in November 2010: West MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has called for a flood scheme planned for Somerset to be scrapped as part of spending cuts. He says the Environment Agency should immediately abandon plans to spend £20 million on buying and flooding farmland to create a new wetland in Steart, near Bridgwater, to comply with an EU directive. Revelations about the scheme have infuriated local people who claim it will leave properties more, rather than less, prone to flooding. Now Mr Liddell-Grainger, the Tory MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, says it should be consigned to the ...
Quick trivia question: What connects Richard Osman, Dan Snow and Mark Steel? They're the last all-male line-up of guests on Have I Got News For You, if Danny Cohen delivers on his promise: "We're not going to have panel shows on any more with no women on them. You can't do that. It's not acceptable." As some of you may have noticed, I've been collecting data on the gender bias on Have I Got News For You for a while and so this is welcome news. As I've got almost bored of pointing out, there have been only seven episodes ...
How often do we hear of a government minister doing something so wrong that they have to resign from their post, only to find that what they have done is not so bad because they can keep their job as an MP at a basic salary of £66,396? What he has done is either so bad that he shouldn't be an MP or not so bad in which case he shouldn't resign as a minister. Change the world
RoboCop (Cert 21A)Director: Jose PadilhaWebsite : http://www.robocop.com/site/ A reboot of Paul Verhoeven's classic distopian good cop/bad corp 80's scifi movie is a brave move.While computer graphics and console FPS gaming lend high production values and a shared visual language for the audience (hand held camera shake, head up display in play), it is hard, if you remember the original, to think of RoboCop with anyone other than Peter Weller's face. That said, Joel Kinnaman does his best with a face, hand and a few assorted body parts to inject some gritty humanity back into the billion dollar man/machine suit built ...
[IMG: Lib Dems winning here] Here's the full list of selection contests in the coming month available for Lib Dems on the approved parliamentary candidates' list, together with the closing date for applications. They include five of the seats on the party's top 50 target list: Edinburgh South, York Outer (following Nick Emmerson's withdrawal), Devon West and Torridge, Bristol North West, and Chelmsford. The following seats have selections in progress and are currently advertising for candidates: Chorley, 11th February Bexhill and Battle, 14th February Edinburgh South, 14th February South Norfolk, 14th February Broadland, 17th February Selby & Ainsty, 17th February ...
BoingBoing reports: [IMG: Using a credit card online. Photo courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/photo/537907 - some rights reserved] At least 16 fraudulent sites attributed to the National Republican Congressional Committee have been discovered. These sites, whose domains are the names of Democratic candidates, use large type and photos that make them appear to be fundraisers for those candidates, though the small-print text makes it clear that these are actually sites set up opposing their apparent candidates. The NRCC claims these are all fair game and blame Democrats for not registered their candidates' names as for campaign sites. But when there's a site ...
Last summer I discovered that the Kinks' David Watts was a real person and came from Rutland. Psychobabble has a good version of the story: The Kinks first encountered Major David Watts while playing a gig in the tiny English county of Rutland. Ex-military man Watts was the promoter of the show, and after the Kinks finished performing in the humid open air, Watts invited the boys back to his cottage to change into clean clothes. It was at this moment that Mick Avory's gaydar began flashing, and he proved his point by dropping his drawers in the major's presence. ...
As you no doubt will have noticed if you've looked at a newspaper in the last few months, the Lib Dems are currently being ravaged by scandals concerning sexual harrassment, largely revolving around Lord Chris Rennard and Mike Hancock MP. I'm not going to comment on those particular allegations – I don't have anything to [...]
Many thanks to the 19,300 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Emma Gilpin-Jacobs quits as Director of Communications to the DPM (15 comments) by The Voice Opinion: Eastern Europeans hold the key to the European elections (42) by Issan Ghazni Sarah Yong selected as Liberal Democrat candidate for Somerton and Frome (13) by Caron Lindsay Lewis Baston on the polls and 'How the Lib Dems will actually do' (36) by Stephen Tall YouGov asks: What is it about Lib Dems and Sci-Fi? (25) by Mary Reid Mike Hancock resigns from Lib Dem ...
It's always very tricky when people who aren't educators start banging on about what should or shouldn't be taught in schools. My own school days are but a hazy memory of hormones, angst, and boring homework. Yet here I am, pontificating. With the current "fad" of encouraging children to learn to code, I thought I would be worth looking at the difference between coding and computer science. [IMG: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 ] History I learned the infamous Logo Turtle at school and BBC BASIC at home. That is learning to code. I followed instructions, copy-typed from books, and ...
Pelaw and Heworth action day was a success! Cllr Marilynn Ord and I were sent off to deliver letters to people with whom we are particularly keen to engage in 3 patches in Pelaw. I knew the main road through that area as it is on the way to Bill Quay Community Farm which I visit regularly to help look after the bees. When we got back to our temporary HQ after finishing the deliveries, we found
This story relates to a french case where the judges have indicated that an English LA is wrong. That is added to the Italian case reported before Xmas and a number of Irish cases. When you add this to all the foreign governments complaining this should have a bit more concern from government. It is true that progress is being made and now more appeals are being given in England and Wales.
The BBC report that the number of Welsh students applying to study in England has risen by nearly 20% since 2010. And according to data from UCAS the total staying in Wales has fallen over the same period. The figures show that in 2010 42,150 Welsh teenagers applied to study at English universities, but this year applications reached 50,180, a rise of 19%. Over the same time, the numbers applying to study in Wales have dropped from 40,560 to 36,700, a fall of 9.5%. Opposition parties fear the policy of subsidising tuition fees is boosting English universities at the expense ...
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... When 140 Characters Isn't Enough: Weekly Update 8/2/14 Here's @Samfr's latest list of educationy must-reads http://bit.ly/1fTG5em (this one includes @EducEndowFoundn and, erm, me). Unfamiliar Levels of Depth and Smart Managing are Keeping Everton in the Top Four Chase – Royal Blue Mersey S'true > Unfamiliar Levels of Depth and Smart Managing are Keeping Everton in the Top Four Chase http://bit.ly/1fTFn0F Whisper it: Labour's A&E winter crisis hasn't happened. That's big news - Telegraph Blogs Fair pt from Ben Brogan tho mild winter doubtless helped: ...
Mark Harper, Conservative MP has resigned his post as Immigration Minister after he discovered he was employing an illegal immigrant as a cleaner. The Immigration bill is progressing and will expect landlords and letting agents to check the immigration status of potential renters, or face fines of up to £3000 per tenant. It's now a good time to question the practicality of these proposals.
... this time at least. Nigel Farage is quite right to have a go over how short Parliamentary by-election campaigns have become: [IMG: Nigel Farage. Photo shared under Creative Commons, some rights reserved I do not think democracy is being well served and fear that the voting process is now actually undermining the ability of constituents to hear and weigh-up the alternatives being offered in a considered fashion. The problem is most acute when it comes to parliamentary by-elections. Our recent experience is that where the Labour Party is responsible for moving the writ, it has taken to condensing ...
We're 15 months from the May 2015 election so here's my latest running check on how candidate selection is going in our held and key target seats... [IMG: Lib Dems winning here] I published a first draft of this list at the start of October, and asked readers to help me update it. Many thanks to those of you who have helped me keep it updated, including the party's Candidates Services Office. Here's the latest version of the list of (re-)selections in our held seats and the top 50 targets for the party. It's a snapshot of how the party's ...
Councillors at this week's Hertfordshire County Council's Education, Skills and Enterprise Cabinet Panel were told by officers that virtually 25% or one school in four across all age groups "requires improvement" which is the second lowest Ofsted category – just above the failing category (known as Special Measures). This is a much higher proportion than the National average (one in five) and is a major cause for concern. This will mean that these schools will be re-inspected much sooner than schools rated "Good" or "Outstanding". If they have not improved after two more Ofsted inspections, there is a very high ...
[IMG: clegg drugs observer] The message may not be new – Nick Clegg first declared that "If you are anti-drugs, you should be pro-reform" back in December 2012 – but that's no reason not to welcome the Lib Dem leader's re-statement that urgent reform of the UK's drugs laws is needed. It's the splash in today's Observer, which reports: In some of the most outspoken comments on the issue by a serving British politician, Clegg laments the current situation in which "one in five young people have admitted taking drugs in the last year", and "cocaine use has more than ...
I read two very different articles this week that left me pondering the topic of Christian isolationism. The first was in Salon by self-described agnostic Maggie Flynn: I'd only been in Nashville a few months when I met this guy — let's call him Matthew — at a downtown honky-tonk through friends of friends. He [...]
The Times reports on the sudden resignation of immigration minister, Mark Harper yesterday, for committing the offence of hiring a cleaner, who was not entitled to be in the country. According to the report, Mr.Harper said that he had been shown documents by his employee showing that she had indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom but he discovered this week that they were forged. They say that the incident is hugely embarrassing for Mr Cameron, who has made tackling illegal migration one of his foremost priorities as he seeks to fend off the threat of Ukip. A cornerstone ...
There are two meetings planned at Blyth Town Council next week Tuesday 11th February , 6:30 pm, at Armss Evertyne House Assets Committee Thursday 13th Febrary, 6:30 pm at Arms Evertyne House, Community Grants Committee
One of the larger running themes in political journalism — and especially blogging — over the last few weeks has been that there are rumours of rapprochement between Labour and the Lib Dems — Clegg and Balls jokingly exchanging tweets, Balls describing Clegg as a man of principle and so on. The implication has been [...]
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My Twitter timeline has, on weekends past, been full of people commenting on the latest Scandinavian drama on TV, but I've never really gotten into any of them, not even Borgen (yes, I know...). And it is true that BBC4 has found some really interesting stuff, including Inspector Montalbano. I want to be Salvo, I want the three hour lunches, the fine wine, the generally looking cool and solving mysteries in an eccentric but morally upright(ish) manner. The swimming I can do without, but otherwise... And so, when Ros flicked through the television section of today's paper and discovered a ...
