I heard Karl Popper give a lecture at York while I was an undergraduate there. I think it was the inaugural lecture of a series sponsored by some variety of Rowntree money and I remember that Jo Grimond was present. Here is Popper speaking some years after that. He took part in three programmes under the title Uncertain Truth - you can find the others on Youtube if you search - but this one on knowledge gets to the heart of his philosophy. You can watch part 2 of it too. If you want to know more about Popper and ...
For the past 4 years I have campaigned for the creation of a combined authority for the 6 councils that make up the Liverpool conurbation. Such a body is absolutely vital if we are all to attract investment from public ... Continue reading →
I have just listened to the second part of Steve Richards' Radio 4 documentary Nick Clegg: The Liberal Who Came to Power. The press coverage beforehand concentrated on Jeremy Browne's opposition to the idea of selling ourselves as the party of the centre and on Shirley Williams observation that Nick likes to surround himself with young people, not all of whom are particularly competent - Simon Titley's belligerent youths. I agree with both, but Shirley Williams said something else important that the pre-broadcast coverage missed. She said that Nick Clegg has a low opinion of the House of Lords. I ...
The Independent has a heart-warming story about a seven-year-old boy from Tennessee who survived a night out of doors in sub-zero temperatures by cuddling up with his pet dog. But it contains this remarkable piece of grammar: Unable to climb out and only wearing a camouflage jacket and a fur hat, Dominic's dog kept him warm while he waited for help.
Did you know Bernard Bresslaw once published a volume of poetry? Well he did and here it is. pic.twitter.com/j3t1v6uwbG — Agnes Guano (@agnes_guano) February 17, 2014 Agnes Guano is the proprietor of The Downstairs Lounge and scours charity shops for "chewy vinyl nuggets of the very choicest British comedy records" so you don't have to. But what caught my attention here was not the thought of Bernard Bresslaw as a poet, but the publisher. Who was Toni Savage of Leicester? The answer can be found in the Incline Press book A Paper Snowstorm: Toni Savage & the Leicester Broadsheets by ...
I had been invited to give evidence on the impact of the Welfare Reforms on London Boroughs to the London Assembly Housing Committee on 12th February. I attended as representative of a Liberal Democrat-run borough alongside my Labour counterpart from Hackney, Karen Alcock, and Conservative Dudley Mead from Croydon. Private rents increasingly unaffordable Despite our [...]
Mon 17th
18:45
Jeremy Browne achieves impossible: unites both Lib Dem left and right. But he's wrong.
Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne – the Orange Booker's Orange Booker – has achieved something he's not normally known for: uniting both the economic liberal ('right') and social liberal ('left') of the party. How has he done this? By criticising Nick Clegg's strategy of pitching the Lib Dems in the centre of British politics. Here's what he'll say in tonight's BBC Radio 4 documentary, Nick Clegg — the Liberal who came to power: Jeremy Browne, who was sacked by Mr Clegg as Home Affairs Minister, said: "I have some unease that we are trying to pitch ourselves as a party ...
This classical Latin question of 2,000 years ago has no greater relevance than to Ireland today. The national police force, An Garda Síochána (the Guardians of the Peace), is commonly referred to in English as 'the Guards'. After a series of policing scandals, in 2005 an Ombudsman was established, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), to provide an answer to Juvenal's question of who will guard the guards. The Commission was partly modelled on the equivalent office in Northern Ireland, but with fewer and blunter teeth. Its relationship with the Gardaí has been, it has to be said, a tense ...
Now that I've been a member of a gym for three months or so - and no, that's not showing off, as I'm still a walrus - some things are becoming apparent. Firstly, I'm really not young any more. My fellow gym users are, for the most part, in their late teens and twenties, except those who are clearly there to build vast muscles that make them look a bit like bison. Each to their own on that one, I think. Secondly, the music they play in gyms is suited to people who go to Ibiza to dance and party. ...
I've blogged before about the Cressington Community First Fund, which gives grants to projects in the Cressington ward of Liverpool. Decisions are made by a panel of local people - one of them is me. The money comes from the Government and Cressington is not the only bit of Liverpool to benefit. If your organisation is in Garston, you may well be covered by the Speke/Garston Community First Fund. Anyway, this fund (Speke Garston) has a deadline coming up for the next lot of applications. It's 3 March. You can get info, and a form, from the Council rep by ...
[IMG: GTY_ukraine_protests_sk_131204_16x9_992] Article first published on Lib Dem Voice While UKIP and the Tory Right want to take Britain out of Europe other nations are clamouring to join the EU, not least in the Ukraine where pro-EU protests have been taking place for several months now. They want to be 'in' for the same reason as the Liberal Democrats, to boost jobs and investment. Europe is not a threat to national sovereignty but a guarantor of democratic and economic stability across the continent. As Ukraine protestors are seeking to free their country from Kremlin interference so too the collective influence ...
I've just come across some information about an event at Liverpool Town Hall which might be helpful if you are looking for work or an apprenticeship or need to find somewhere to live. I've pasted the info below: A jobs homes and enterprise fair - 'Living Local Working Local' - takes place at Liverpool Town Hall on February 27, offering hundreds of job opportunities for people across Merseyside, as well as the opportunity to view a wide range of homes available to rent and buy. Hosted by Neighbourhood investor, Plus Dane Group, the event provides attendees with the chance to ...
Liberals have common cause with pro-democracy protestors in Ukraine While UKIP and the Tory Right want to take Britain out of Europe other nations are clamouring to join the EU, not least in the Ukraine where pro-EU protests have been taking place for several months now. They want to be 'in' for the same reason as the Liberal Democrats, to boost jobs and investment. Europe is not a threat to national sovereignty but a guarantor of democratic and economic stability across the continent. As Ukraine protestors are seeking to free their country from Kremlin interference so too the collective influence ...
Canadians absolutely hate it when Americans call them "nice". LibDems on the other hand seem to regard such an epithet as a mark of honour. And yet, one sometimes wonders if the "niceness" is the Party's feet of clay. The current agonising in the deepest bowels of the Party over whether to defenestrate Nick Clegg shows that the Machiavellians/Survivalists are still massively outnumbered by the "Nice Guys'. Several months back a flurry was created when Nick Boles, pictured below, the Tory MP for Grantham (how is that for irony) floated the idea of the relaunch of the National Liberals. It ...
Canvassing in the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election I encountered a number of voters who asked the question; "Lib Dems, I don't know what they stand for." It would be easy, and wrong, to dismiss such a questioner as uninformed or typical of the tribal element in every constituency who have no real interest in your answer. As the date of the next General Election nears, the answer to this question will be critical to Liberal Democrat prospects. The compromises of coalition have muddied the waters, and the Liberal Democrats stand to come off worst. In the northern cities, the ...
Cast your mind back to 1668, if you can. That was the year they decided to start executing bankers. The banker Johan Palmstruch was sentenced to be beheaded in Stockholm outside his own bank. His crime? Causing inflation. In fact,, the sentence was never carried out and he was imprisoned instead, the fate of innovators everywhere - and Palmstruch had just invented the first European paper money. The irony is, of course, was that he may have been guilty: his paper bank notes would have definitely hastened inflation if they had been printed a little indiscriminately. But those were the ...
[IMG: Nottingham Meeting] East Midlands Euro candidate Issan Ghazni attended a special meeting of the Nottingham city party to talk about the campaign to re-elect hardworking MEP Bill Newton-Dunn. The meeting came ahead of the Lib Dems' "Why I Am In" campaign which emphasises the importance of staying in Europe to boost economic growth and jobs in Britain. Ghazni, who is second on the regional Euro list, was joined by fellow Euro candidate Deborah Newton-Cook. They both talked about the need to tackle head-on the myths perpetrated by UKIP. Myths include scaremongering about a 'Euro superstate'. Ghazni said that such ...
Here's a telling excerpt from Matthew Taylor's – Tony Blair's head of strategy, now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) – blog-post on public service reform: Observance of Chatham House rules requires me to protect the source of the following brilliant observations from an official currently seconded to the Cabinet Office. 'Having never worked in Whitehall I spent a few weeks wondering around, going to meetings and watching people work. After a while I figured it out: Central government is basically a publishing house. It is full of people writing stuff, contracts, consultation papers, regulations. These things ...
A London site has joined the network of the late, great, US blogger Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart London has today launched, edited by James Delingpole and Raheem Kassam. It becomes part
I'm turning into an old curmudgeon. Either that, or the new wave of social marketing has severely missed its intended target. Let me ask you a question, do you want to be friends with your utility company? Your phone provider? Your soft drinks manufacturer? I don't mean "follow-on-social-media" friends - I mean actual buddies. [IMG: friends-tv-show] On the face of it, that's a ridiculous question. You can no more be friends with a conglomerate than you can trust a politician. When your local MP comes knocking on the door, she's all smiles, friendly language, and we'll-be-with-you-thick-and-thin - yet you know ...
Tonight's radio programme Nick Clegg: The Liberal who came to power has hit the news-stands for this apparent top line demand of any future coalition with Labour: There is just no doubt in my mind that if there were a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, we the Liberal Democrats would absolutely insist that government would not break the bank. More details can be found in the Mirror, Guardian and BBC, and other sources of news are available. Let's contrast the following comments by Nick on the Labour Party I think they've changed. I think there's nothing like the prospect of reality in ...
[IMG: Vietnam War helicoper - CH-47 Chinook. Photo courtesy of - some rights reserved] To go with the party's increasing membership, the Liberal Democrats will soon have a new membership database system too. It will be only the third in the party's history, the first of which was inherited from before the merger and was based on software used to track American helicopter spare parts during the Vietnam war. The new system has a rather more banal source: it's one of the most popular and widely used online CRM system (customer relationship management, in the jargon) – Salesforce. [IMG: ...
The party's Federal Conference takes place from 7-9 March at York's Barbican Centre. ALDC will be there, as always, providing our usual mix of training sessions, campaign advice, fringe events and publications. After the success of last year's Federal Conference, we will again be joining forces with our friends in the LGA Lib Dems to [...]
Steps to protect roadside pavements and verges from being damaged during building development have been recommended by St Albans City and District Council's Local Services Scrutiny Committee. At a meeting on Thursday 6 February, the Committee heard that the Council has limited powers to prevent parked vehicles and storage of building materials causing damage. However, the Committee recommended the appointment of a permanent Compliance and Monitoring Officer to help tackle the problem. As part of the job, they will make developers aware that damage to pavements and verges is unacceptable. The Committee also endorsed the practice of attaching notes to ...
"Today's Which? Survey of rail passenger satisfaction yet again shows that First Capital Connect is the bottom rail company in terms of customer satisfaction, and on cue we have another day of massive rail disruption," says Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat candidate for St Albans. "Of course we understand that flooding has affected the southernmost part of the Thameslink route. "But the question all weary St Albans commuters will ask when they went to a station which had to be shut because of the congestion and no emergency buses till 9.15 is whether this could have been anticipated and whether Brighton-based ...
Understanding the cycle of elections for local authorities can be a complicated process for the elector. Last year, a vote at Full Council resolved that Bristol City Council would change its cycle from 'elections by thirds' to whole council elections or 'all ups', to commence in 2016. This is a unique opportunity for Bristol to prove it's not afraid for bold change and to introduce the Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system for elections to the council. Turnout in local authority elections in England has always been lower than for Westminster elections. By introducing proportional representation in the form of ...
The presence in Sochi of the first Jamaican bobsleigh team to compete in the Olympics for 12 years has provoked nostalgia for the 1993 film Cool Runnings. In a post for Slate's Olympics blog, Justin Peters makes a valiant attempt to stamp on the rose tinted spectacles through which this mediocre film is seen: It's [...]
The dream of harnessing the power of the River Severn is at least 150 years old but, though proposals to build a Severn barrage are in limbo, other schemes in the UK and overseas remain alive. This note covers the pros and cons of barrages and where we are today.ALDSevernBarrage214
Happy Sunday! I hope that you had a great weekend. I've decided to brighten up a stormy evening by reflecting upon the things that've made me happy this week. 1. A romantic Valentine's Day with the Boy. We both had the day off, but stayed in during the morning, as we we had to wait for a delivery. However, we had an indoor picnic for lunch, and went out to supper at a restaurant called Lorenzo's in Plymouth. They make the most amazing Spanish food, and we spent a lovely evening together hiding from the rain. 2. Getting offered the ...
Mon 17th
09:57
FCC's excuses - although no explanation as to why they could not tell people what was going on at th...
Our Thameslink route is severely disrupted today. This is due to flooding and consequent damage to signalling equipment at Patcham Tunnel (between Hassocks and Brighton). First Capital Connect have major Drivers' Depots at Brighton and Bedfordand a smaller one at Blackfriars. As a result of the current infrastructure problems, the majority of Brighton-based drivers (who would normally drive trains to and from St Albans / Luton / Bedford) are unavailable. We are working closely Network Rail, whose engineers are on site and are doing everything possible to resolve the current infrastructure problems as swiftly as possible. FCC are operating the ...
I'm sure you are already on with campaigning, residents surveying and getting ready for the European elections, followed by the Scottish Referendum! It's going to be a busy few months... But in this column, I wanted to talk about a couple of things that seem to have flown under the radar of the media but [...]
It has not been a good week for Scottish independence campaigners and particularly the SNP. Their primary objective in their quest has been to achieve a break up of the UK without scaring any horses. We'd hardly notice, they said. ... Continue reading →
In World's Best-Run Economy, House Prices Keep Falling -- Because That's What House Prices Are Supposed To Do This article made me uncomfortable :/ (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Mon 17th
08:55
Police called in amid claims of "fabricated allegations" and a "smear campaign" over Haringey Labour...
[IMG: Labour Party Red Rose logo] Labour branch secretary accuses Labour council candidate of taking part in "smear campaign" Other Labour members complain of "dirty tricks" at selection meeting Police issue 'Prevention of Harassment' letter to a member of the public for tweeting about the story I've written before about the controversy over the Labour Party's selections for this May's Haringey Council elections, with allegations of vote fixing at a key selection meeting: The selection was for St Ann's Ward, where one Labour councillor was standing down after being charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. The other ...
[IMG: Saudi football supporter] At Autumn Conference in 2008, the Liberal Democrats passed a motion backing proposals to change the regulations that prevent football stadiums in the Championship and Premier League from providing 'safe-standing' areas. The motion called for the Government to: Replace any regulations requiring spectators to be seated with new regulations clearly setting out standards under which a safe standing area may be licensed. And Direct the Football Licensing Authority to prepare suitable guidance under which domestic football clubs, working with their supporters, may introduce safe standing areas. Fast forward to 2014 and those regulations, that prevent football ...
Today's Western Mail carries news of a very real argument about the impact of Welfare Reform on the Welsh economy that has significance for the living standards of every family in Wales. The problem as I see it though is that once you strip away the statistical arguments we are actually left no wiser as to what is really happening on the ground. The Welsh Labour Government argue that on average each working age adult in Wales will lose £480 as a result of welfare changes, that in some cases, Labour supported at Westminster. That amounts to a "total loss ...
The Western Mail reports on an exclusive You Gov poll that shows that Council taxpayers overwhelmingly believe services would stagnate or get worse if their councils were to merge with neighbouring authorities. The survey found that whilst there was an even split on whether respondents were in favour of their council merging with a neighbouring one, three-quarters believed their local services would not improve as a result of the plans. There is also widespread scepticism of the effect of slashing the number of councils would have on council tax levels, with 40% saying they thought council tax would go up ...
Fair Trade fortnight is nearly with us, so here's an event coming up just down the road in The Heatons.
So, last week I left you with this little teaser. Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Would you like to swap doors?" Assuming you don't want a goat is it to your advantage to switch your choice to the other unopened door? At this point many people are thinking "It's a 50/50 chance so why bother taking ...
A Yes supporting friend of mine called last night and said that he had still not seen one positive argument for the Union. I suppose that he might still be trying to cope with the destruction of the economic case for Scottish separation that has taken place over the past four days. Let me then quickly summarize a positive case for the continuation of Britain. Britain matters Britain matters economically.The sixth largest economy in the world, our peers are not just France and Germany, but Japan, Brazil, China and even the United States. Britain has significant economic influence over the ...
