Good news. Zuffar Haq, who fought Harborough at the last general election, has been chosen to fight the seat again in 2015. Zuffar also made an extremely creditable showing as our candidate in the 2011 Leicester South by-election.
I've been pretty busy these past few days and am just properly catching up on events in Ukraine and Crimea. I am beginning to wonder whether I have underestimated Putin's intentions. AP are quoting him having told Obama that Russia has the right to take action to protect Russian lives and interests, and Russian speakers. Obama during his 90-minute phone all with Putin. That last point is the most significant: the majority of Crimeans are ethnic Russians. People in the east of Ukraine are Russian speaking Ukrainians. Putin has reserved the right to take further intervention from across Ukraine's eastern ...
In which we and John Betjeman arrive in Burnham-on-Sea. Now watch part 1 and part 2.
LibDemVoice has two parallel sites. The first is our public blog, the thing you're reading now. The second is our private members' forum, which only current Lib Dem members can access. If you're a member and want to chat with fellow party members about any issue that's on your mind, then why not sign up? In addition, you'll be included in our regular surveys' of party members' views. Here's some of the most active discussions this past 7 days: Do bankers bonuses at RBS show the impotence of government?; Scottish Independence; Could a Cable car ride stop the Lib Dems' ...
Guest blog by Janet Grauberg, Cotleigh Road resident and Kilburn Lib Dem campaigner There is a huge debate - both nationally and here in Camden - about the merits or otherwise of building the High Speed 2 rail line. But there has not been much focus on the implications for Kilburn, so I have been [...]
As Isabel Hardman reports on the Spectator Coffee House blog, some Conservatives are trying to link Putin heedless behaviour over the Ukraine with Labour's refusal to back British military intervention in Syria. Truly, there is no end to the courage of the laptop warrior. And, as Hardman says, this approach ignores the fact that 30 Conservative backbenchers voted against military intervention in Syria too. It also ignores the view of the senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, as stated in the Commons on Friday: May I express that last question in a slightly gentler way by asking if we can avoid ...
Yesterday, I was reading the information panels at Newbury's Clock House, as you do. Northbrook Street in Newbury used to be presided over by a large cannon. It stood on the site of the Clock House and pointed down Northbrook Street. Apparently, it was brought back as spoils from the Crimean War. Here is the relevant illustration on the information panel. It shows what was on the Clock House site in 1910. The drawing is by Len Webb. [IMG: canon clock] [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
Sat 1st
18:36
Can everyone please just play nice? Briefing against other Liberal Democrats and insulting party mem...
We've had some pretty strange and random articles appearing all over the place about who might replace Nick Clegg. The least strange and random was of course this by my co-editor Stephen Tall. People who know Graeme Littlejohn have generally been laughing their ... Continue reading →
For the second day running local people turned out to show their support and 'love' for St Just Library. The point many make is that it is not the building but the service and atmosphere they value. A Cornishman photographer came to record us holding hands and making a circle around the whole building. Just like yesterday, I didn't know what the response would be but we rose to the challenge and the circle was complete! We did not quite manage to empty the Library yesterday but over 500 people came and many did take out their 18 books so, ...
Sat 1st
16:33
Can everyone please just play nice? Briefing against other Liberal Democrats and insulting party act...
[IMG: carmichael and teddy bear] We've had some pretty strange and random articles appearing all over the place about who might replace Nick Clegg. The least strange and random was of course this by my co-editor Stephen Tall. People who know Graeme Littlejohn have generally been laughing their heads off at the notion that he's been brought in as Danny Alexander's Head of Office as some Machiavelli who's going to win him the leadership. That's been in a couple of papers now and I'm just wondering who on earth is spreading this stuff. Actually, I do have some ideas, but ...
I again breach my self-imposed ban on blogging about local politics to put my political opponents on the couch. How do people who sincerely care about social justice wind up opposing spending to protect the homeless? "Self-licensing...is a term used in social psychology and marketing to describe the subconscious phenomenon whereby increased confidence and security in one's self-image...tends to make that individual [...]
There is still time to nominate your community heroes for the Chair's Community Awards, but hurry, the deadline for nominations is Friday 21 March. The annual awards event celebrates the hard work and dedication of volunteers in the community who display outstanding commitment in giving up their time and effort to help others. Suggestions for nominations include those who have contributed to community development, promoting equality, arts, sports, play, environment, working with older or young people, advice and advocacy or have simply been a good neighbour. From charity fundraisers to local football club managers, sports coaches and arts festival organisers, ...
It's a funny thing, democracy. It's very popular when it delivers the outcome that you want, but a problem when it doesn't, a point which becomes all the more evident if you are an activist in a political organisation. Note that I say 'organisation' and not 'party', as I've encountered the same situation both as a Liberal Democrat and in other groups that I've been involved in. Organisations develop their internal democracies in a manner which reflects their philosophy. For example, Liberal Democrats are suspicious of 'strong leadership' whereby the Leader and his/her key supporters have the authority to take ...
Last night's Today in Parliament ended with an item looking back to the general election of February 1974. Paul Tyler talked about his own experiences at Bodmin (where he won by 9 votes after six recounts) and Liberal MPs' attitude towards the hung parliament that resulted. Interestingly, he said that Conservative MPs were far more interested in some sort of deal to keep Edward Heath in power than the Liberals were. Those who believe Jeremy Thorpe was desperate for high office have misunderstood him. You have another six days to listen to this programme. The item on February 1974 starts ...
Steve McQueen's film is a triumph not only as a piece of cinema but also as an account of slavery So it looks like 12 years a slave will pick up the Best Picture Oscar. And so it should. The best way to explain how good a film this is, is not to point out [...]
St David's Day gives us time to think about who we are as a nation. Our identity comes first to mind. Identity isn't a fixed status; it is a feeling. Personally, first and foremost, I feel Welsh; then British; then European. Being Welsh is always the overriding sense of who I am. I believe a reason for this is how comfortable we in Wales are of our own patriotism. We all have much to be proud over how much our country achieves. For a country over just 3 million, we really do punch well above our weight. Every year Wales ...
Just one principal by-election this week. In Scotter ward of West Lindsey District Council, the Conservatives held on in a two way contest with the Liberal Democrats. Keith Panter more than doubled the Liberal Democrat vote achieving 34.3%. Surprisingly UKIP who came second in the County Council elections last May didn't stand a candidate after coming fourth in a by-election for the ward last December. The Liberal Democrats have been making good progress in this part of rural Lincolnshire recently having won the county division in a by-election last December. The Scotter team's campaign focused on River Trent flood warnings, ...
I'm really late to the party on this one - so this blog post is mostly an aide-mémoire. The web is built on three fundamental components: HTML - the structure of the page. CSS - how the page is styled. JavaScript - the interactivity. Typically, the website owner sets up the CSS to say links are blue, headlines are big, images have borders etc. etc. Users, however, can over-ride these styles using their own CSS. For example, a person with poor vision may decided to pump up all the fonts, or make all the text high-contrast. Or, they could change ...
It is inevitable that amongst the images of more than 1.8 million Yahoo! users hoovered up by GCHQ there are photos of children, and surely - given the scale of it - of children in their bedrooms. Yet where is the outcry?This latest discovery from the Snowden files is not simply the next chapter in the story of how every aspect of our online lives has been monitored over recent years. It also blows apart the standard defence used so far that only metadata - who called who when, but not the content - has been gathered up and picked ...
Today's Western Mail reports that Stephen Kinnock, who is hoping to be shortlisted this weekend as the Labour candidate for Aberavon says that he unintentionally misled the paper when he suggested fees paid to a private school attended by his daughter in Copenhagen amounted to just £80 a month: When we raised the issue with Mr Kinnock last week, he told us: "It is highly misleading to say that our daughter attended a private school. "It gives the impression that she was going to somewhere like Eton or Harrow, which is far from the truth and something we would never ...
[IMG: cleave tm crp] An interesting development. I like Marina Hyde's take on it: But it's one thing for a bunch of people to go public about the personal details whipped off their voicemails, and quite another to reveal that footage of oneself masturbating into chopped liver or apple pie or whatever may have found its way into Allied hands. While I enormously admire the rare victim who would waive their right to onanistic anonymity for the greater good, you sense that, for all the clear moral rectitude of the cause, the majority of potential Optic Nerve targets may want ...
Who are these people? – The "Home Energy Advisory Centre". They cold-called me last night, despite me being on the Telephone Preference Service, a fact of which they appeared to be oblivious. They didn't come up on a Google search. Well, they do now. Ho. Ho. Ho. [IMG: Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post
"A fair, free and open society, in which... no one shall be enslaved by poverty." The fundamental basis of our party's constitution - its very soul - is the elimination of poverty. We may disagree amongst us on how best to achieve this ambitious goal, but there's little dissent on having it as a goal, particularly when it comes to the blight of children growing up in poverty. As Caron made clear, we find ourselves in government with a party that doesn't share many of our values - rarely is this crystallised as starkly as this week's battle over child ...
Hierarchy of Beards Poster - waaaaant (tags: ) It looks like drug reformers are about to get a foothold in policy - GO NORMAN (tags: ) Brighouse restaurateur given award for chasing down muggers. (tags: ) Who can be arsed to hate Grant Shapps... whose personality is so lacking that he had to invent another one? (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The Post Office is consulting about changing the arrangements at Abbotswood Post Office. There would no longer be the screened counters. Instead there would be a till on the main retail counter. This would mean that Post Office services would be available for much longer (Mon - Sun 06:00 - 22:00) but a few facilities would be lost, for example you wouldn't be able to pay by cheque. You can comment online at postofficeviews.co.uk quoting branch number 16351199, write to "FREEPOST Your Comments" (Yes, that's it, the shortest address we've ever seen!), phone 08457 22 33 44 or textphone 08457 ...
Sat 1st
08:30
The Skills Express Art Exhibition at @VerdantWorks with @skillsharednd and @dundee_angus students
Excellent news from the EU! European Union Members of Parliament condemned the use of drones in targeted killings in a vote of 534 to 49. The vote proposing a ban referred to the drone strikes as "unlawful." Not just a victory but a landslide victory. I once heard drone strikes described as 'surgical.' They are the exact opposite. They are notoriously imprecise, killing nine innocent civilians for every one 'bad guy.' The callous disregard of human life in affected areas can only serve to breed contempt and make us less safe. If the powers that be ever update the Geneva ...
Those who thought that the English badger cull could not get more farcical will have been disabused of that whimsy yesterday with the leaking of the conclusions of the Independent Expert Panel appointed by Defra to evaluate its implementation. The Ecologist reports that the badger culls were an outright failure. They killed well under the target number of animals, and were unable to meet Defra's own 'humaneness test': First, fewer than half of the badger population was killed in both areas over the six-week period - against the target to kill 70% of badgers in each area. This is worse ...
