Con seat. Death LD Candidate: Simon Sansome
Lab Seat. Resignation LD Candidate: Matt Hemsley
Con seat. Death. Prospective Candidate: Tony Gubb Contact: Tony Gubb a.gubb@visionplc.co.uk Returning Officer: East Herts DC. http://www.eastherts.gov.uk
Stockport Council sets its budget for the coming year on 27th February. The Lib Dem proposals include: The second part of the savings proposed last year (when we consulted on a two-year budget) Freezing Council Tax for the third year out of four. £100 million investment in repairing roads and pavements across Stockport Capital investment in creating more primary school places For all the detail, see the proposals published below. These are from the Lib Dems – other groups may bring forward their own budget proposals or amendments to ours.
It seems a business based in Launceston is attempting to fleece some of the town's most vulnerable people by charging for advice on benefits, tax, disability issues and other problems. Advice and help on issues connected with the council or government is available free of charge from lots of people and agencies. The only person you should ever pay in relation to any of these matters is a qualified accountant or legal professional if you need them to represent you in court or similar. If you have a problem related to Cornwall Council (or if you're unsure who to direct ...
This Herefordshire village is also home to Aardvark Books.
Although it is a Guardian story about the Guardian, our judges decided to award this effort Headline of the Day.
I am pleased to see David Boyle picking up on the Karl Popper video I posted on Monday. And I share his belief that Popper was "the key Liberal philosopher of the past century or so". Having written the entry on him in the Dictionary of Liberal Thought I have something of a proprietorial interest in the old boy. (Popper that is, not David Boyle.) Certainly, Popper - and Isaiah Berlin - have far more to offer modern Liberals than to do L.T. Hobhouse or T.H. Green. I suspect those last two are more often mentioned than read. Anyone who ...
My piece for the Bristol Lib Dem website on Tuesday's Budget decision: Politics can be murky business at times but in Bristol things are remarkably clear following the Budget debate yesterday: your Council Tax will be going up by 1.95% in April. Something else is clear, too: all the parties had their price in supporting the Mayor's budget. Only one, though, was prepared to defend the ordinary Council Tax payer against an increase in this regressive tax. Only one party recognised that, while the economy is starting to recover, household budgets remain tight and argued that people should be protected ...
One of the more interesting policy papers to be debated at Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in York is 'Power to the People' which sets out with the aim of providing a blueprint for a federal UK. In almost all areas it is a brilliant paper which offers a clear, radical, liberal vision of the future of our country. However, there is one flaw in this paper. And that is the embarrassing fudge which it offers when it comes to English Devolution. It proposes that England use Single Transferable Vote proportional representation for local elections – so far so good – ...
Thu 20th
17:19
EXCLUSIVE: HS2 bosses set to abandon Camden Town HS1 'link' stage of high speed rail project
See on Scoop.it – London Chris Richards's insight: This may provide an opportunity to explore the sensible 'Euston Cross' proposals to link Euston, St. Pancras (Domestic and International) and King's Cross stations: See on www.camdennewjournal.comFiled under: Uncategorized
The news that the homes of David McElhinney, Phil Halsall and one other have been raided by Lancashire Police in connection with their enquiry into One Call Lancashire tells me that Liverpool Council needs to be far more open about ... Continue reading →
[IMG: Fire protest Kiev] ISSAN GHAZNI - a European parliamentary candidate - is calling on the Foreign Secretary William Hague to show more support for pro-democracy protesters in Ukraine at an emergency meeting of EU Foreign Ministers today. Ghazni, who is second on the East Midlands list, believes that the EU has dragged its' heels since last November when Ukrainians first took to the streets following President Viktor Yanukovych's rejection of the EU association agreement, despite efforts by Poland to try and get the EU to take the crisis more seriously. He said: "The deaths in Kiev this week are ...
Thu 20th
14:30
Yes, food poverty is real - but the situation is complex and solutions are not straightforward
Food poverty, it seems to me, is a slightly odd term, but its apparent necessity is, I think, a reflection of the tortuous treatment imposed on the word "poverty". Poverty now, in common usage (at least among experts in such issues), means "relative poverty", which essentially means inequality. So when we actually want to refer to poverty as the word would historically have been understood (as being unable to satisfy one's basic needs) we have to apply a prefix: fuel poverty, food poverty etc. While Britain clearly has its share of poverty on the relative definition, in theory there ought ...
Cllr. Martin Terry has issued a Press Release confirming what I have believed for a matter of months that he will be resigning his position as councillor for Westborough ward and fight for a seat on Southend Council in another ward. That ward will be Thorpe. He believes that his position as Westborough councillor is untenable following the breakdown in relations between himself and another independent councillor, Dr. Vel. It has been brewing for some time and is genuinely not a surprise. Not just for this reason but because Martin I think is a pretty smart man and he knew ...
Some smart stuff from Nick Clegg this morning, issuing a direct challenge to Ukip's Nigel Farage to debate him on Europe. For starters, it seizes the initiative. Nick's been ambushed often enough on his radio phone-in show, Call Clegg, with the producers lining up disgusted ex-Lib Dem members, and folk like Boris Johnson and Cathy Newman, to spring awkward questions on him. Today he turned the tables. The speed with which emails from the party pinged into my inbox – complete with petition to sign – show this was a planned surprise. It's succeeded in catching Nigel Farage off-guard. The ...
If you were not listening to Nick Clegg's LBC phone-in programme this morning and you don't follow any Lib Dems on Twitter or are friends with any Lib Dems on Facebook, then you may have missed the open offer that the leader of the Liberal Democrats made to his UKIP counterpart this morning about debating the merits of being in or out of the EU. You may have been say on the exercise bike watching the Curling for instance but I have no idea who'd be doing such a thing... Anyway... This is what Nick Clegg said: I'll tell you ...
I want to visit Barcelona to take a photo of Orwell Square. George Orwell is famous for fighting in the Spanish Civil War and for writing books like 1984 and if you want to know how the surveillance state plays its part in a dystopian society then look no further than this novel. The irony is that the signs for his square in Barcelona are next to surveillance cameras - and that's the photo I want. Obviously not everyone has taken George's message on board. Cameras may play a part in protecting individual properties but they definitely intrude. Do cameras ...
An investigation by Birkdale Lib Dem Councillor Simon Shaw has revealed that one charity has cost Sefton Council £350,000 in lost rate income over the last four years on the two shops it operates in Southport - money that could have helped keep our lost library open. Healthy Planet is a national charity operating around 30 "Books for Free" stores around the country. In Southport they have one shop in Cambridge Walks and another in one of the large units next to Homebase at the Meols Cop Retail Park. Back in January Simon wrote to senior Council officers calling for ...
It is always interesting to read the views of the comrades in the Labour Party, no more so when they are not invoking class warfare. That is why I was particularly interested in this view on Labour Uncut which suggests that Labour need to acknowledge the way Nick Clegg has changed the political landscape in this country: Any fool can kick Nick Clegg. The Labour party, so often by far the most sanctimonious of the main political parties, has reduced this to a sorry art-form. When Clegg entered the coalition government with the Conservatives, the Labour party, always quick to ...
Thu 20th
12:40Julian Huppert MP writes: Lib Dem immigration policy paper is strong, balanced and compassionate
Public concern about immigration has been fuelled by the rise of UKIP, and further driven by the Tories desperately trying to show how tough they can be on foreigners, and Labour keen not to be left out of the 'sounding tough' rhetoric. I am always disappointed that just about the only thing Labour has apologised for is letting too many people into the country in their 13 years. We must stand firm against the anti-foreigner tide, and the Immigration Policy Paper, which you can read here, does exactly that. Andrew Stunell has led the working group impressively to produce a ...
Happy Birthday to me It's February 20th 2014. Way back in 1957 I was born in Crumpsall Hospital Manchester. Naturally I automatically became a life long Man United supporter. My love of Holt's bitter(an acquired taste), black puddings, whippets and pickled walnuts came later in life. For some reason I never acquired my father's love of tripe. I have definitely enjoyed the inevitable transformation into a grumpy old git. I now: prefer to sit down in pubs rather than stand, I don't understand rap music at all and hanker for the "old days" when beer was £1 a pint and ...
I've started seeing an uptick in Twitter spam - ostensibly from my friends telling me I can make money online. The common denominator is that they all use Pinterest as a vector for spreading the spam. [IMG: pinterest spam] Looking at the accounts of people who have recently tweeted these or similar messages, shows that the majority are real people - not automated spam-bots. So how is this happening? Checking the Tweet's metadata, the tweets all appear to come from the Pinterest service. This indicates two possibilities. Users' Pinterest accounts / passwords have been compromised. It is possible to trick ...
At a cost put at £230,000 Brighton's Green Party is to test their 275,000 electorate by balloting them to back a 4.75% rise in Council Tax. Even then, they would need the support of other parties to actually push such a rise through. Madness. I'm all for democracy, but do turkeys vote for Christmas?
Imagine yourself in the coffee houses of eighteenth century Edinburgh, in the elegance of the New Town. It was there that the philosopher David Hume first cast doubt on scientific method, peering at ideas about what causes what and finding there was nothing there. All you can do, he said, is say that events tend to happen together. Yet, if we can see nothing causing things under the philosophical microscope, it means a big logical problem for the scientists. It doesn't matter how many times they do an experiment, or watch the sun rising bang on time, it doesn't mean ...
From the number of unsolicited offers I receive whenever my house or car insurance is due (how do they know?) there's plenty of allegedly competing firms in the insurance market. It is part of Tory philosophy that competition between private providers is the best way to ensure that the customer receives the best possible deal at the best possible price, and that interference from the government, or regulation (the famous "red tape" that they are so dedicated to cutting) can only hinder the efficiency of the market. Why, then, has the government found it necessary to summon the bosses of ...
There is some merit in the argument presented by the Archbishop of Westminster that cuts, and indeed caps, to welfare are removing a safety net for those worst off in society. We see in the Independent that one in six GPs have been asked to refer people to food banks, and while unemployment may be dropping, people are still struggling with stagnant wages and rising costs. I've long argued against the benefits cap, stating that the cost of living varies so broadly across the country that such a cap can only lead to people in so-called affluent areas being disadvantaged. ...
Have you watched Elementary yet? No? Care about spoilers? Yes? Then skip this post. Don't worry, I'll be back and you can find it again. In this instalment of "seven reasons to kill someone (involving palaeontology): 2. Your dealings on the fossil black market are about to be exposed. One of the ways Sherlock managed to home in on his murderer in Dead Clade Walking was the villain's use of the fossil black market to obtain extra bones for his Dimetrodon specimen. I mentioned yesterday why this was a problem for Dimetrodon science, but it also seems like a prohibitively ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg LBC laughing] On his weekly Call Clegg phone in programme, Nick Clegg challenged Nigel Farage to a public, open debate on whether Britain should stay in the EU. He said it was time for the leaders of the two parties advocating out and in to discuss the issues. He was clear that membership of the EU protected 3 million British jobs, kept us safer and enabled us to protect the environment. I'll tell you what I'll do. I will challenge Nigel Farage to a public, open debate about whether we should be in or out of the ...
[IMG: ishiguru nocturnes] Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguru I read The Remains of the Day when it first came out in paperback (I was that kind of 13 year-old) and have been a massive fan of Ishiguru ever since. The Unconsoled would probably be my desert island book because that's the only occasion I'm likely to have time to figure it out. But I put off reading Nocturnes. It's the short story thing – I always feel short-changed, prefer to lose myself in a long-form novel. This is a collection with a difference: the 5 stories were conceived together, Ishiguru likening them ...
Calderdale Lib Dems & Tories band together to amend labour's budget Note to Labour: doing everything in secret & expecting to push it through on the nod is not REALLY an option when you're a minority administration (tags: ) 22 Reasons Bearded Men Are Better (doesn't even MENTION my # 1 reason) (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
I have had a letter on equal marriage published in the Belfast Telegraph. The letter was shortened a bit for publication. The original is below. Dear Sir, With reference to Cynthia Campbell's letter about same-sex laws (Letters, February 12), I would simply like to say that, as a practising Christian who takes God seriously and so [...]
Interesting point in Leo Barasi's latest piece about public opinion and climate change: [IMG: Storm clouds. Photo courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1200003 - some right reserved] Most of the UK public have long thought that we need to act on climate change. Only about 1 in 7 people think climate change is some kind of hoax; the overwhelming majority think it's a serious problem, if sometimes a bit exaggerated... But with the UK floods that may now be changing. The usual denier voices are still given airtime, and they're still claiming that climate change isn't real, or isn't manmade. But now they're ...
No I don't have any shame but hey these cats are really cute! Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Cate cafe, Cats, Shoreditch
The latest figures on housing show a decrease in the number of new homes registered in Wales They are a 'damning verdict' on the Welsh government's failure to stimulate Wales' housing market. Figures published have shown that the overall UK figure for new houses being registered increased by 28% to 133,670 in 2013 but Wales saw a 12% fall from 4,065 in 2012 to 3,577. These figures are a damning verdict on the Welsh Labour government and its failure to get both our economy and our housing market moving. Liberal Democrats in the coalition government are overseeing a dramatic increase ...
