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. I've just got back from a brilliant Liberal Democrat conference where, in a session on engaging with residents, this newsletter was mentioned by the speaker (not me) as being an excellent example of what to do. The success of this newsletter is entirely down to the readers, so thank you all. 1. Council TaxBroxtowe Borough Council held their budget meeting this week and I'm delighted to say that for the fourth year in a row ...
It was a lovely day, wasn't it? Here in Suffolk, at least, the sun shone out of a clear blue sky, and the spring warmth drew people out to bask in the best weather we've seen for months. And so, we went to Woodbridge, a gentle drive across country, on the lower reaches of the River Deben. And as Ros and I walked along the river bank, the world seemed like a nicer place, as dogs splashed in the shallows and a curlew explored the mud for a snack or two with its elegantly curved bill. We were reminded that, ...
Sun 9th
22:15
My first appearance on the proper BBC1 News - "Not perfect - but in the circumstances we've done the...
Late at night at that delightfully random end of Conference Glee Club, in between The Land and The 12 days of Coalition (doesn't Gareth Epps look like he's going into a wee trance when he sings "B***** all?", I checked my phone to see if there was a goodnight text from my family. There wasn't, but there was one from the BBC, asking if I'd do an interview with political correspondent Vicki Young on the Coalition's record and Nick Clegg's speech. [IMG: Linda Jack and Caron Lindsay on BBC News] I thought I might as well go for it, expecting ...
As always I mercilessly rip Nick's speech from Libdemvoice and post it here - sorry guys - and every time I plan to annotate or tell you what I've taken from it and promptly fail to do so. Not this time! They're more notes - a stream of consciousness and reaction to what was said. Here's Nick's speech from Stephen Tall's Article with my notes in white scattered throughout... enjoy Since I became the Deputy Prime Minister I have had the privilege of spending a bit of time representing Britain's interests in other parts of the world. I have visited ...
From the Huffington Post: A Liberal Democrat MP wore a Nigel Farage mask at the party's conference as she mocked the Ukip leader's penchant for beer. Just before Nick Clegg's appearance, Lorely Burt also mocked a former-Ukip councillor's claim that this winter's floods had been brought on by the introduction of gay marriage. This was not, shall we say, the funniest thing we have ever seen. It wouldn't, to be honest, have been funny even at the traditional end of Conference late night sing-a-long the Glee Club. To be fair, though, after an inauspicious start, Lorely went on to make ...
It has been evident for at least the last four years that there is a shortage of primary school places in Kilburn and West Hampstead. So it's disappointing that it took Camden Council so long to bring forward plans to address this problem. But it is even more concerning that the Council is pushing through a highly unusual and [...]
Friday I call in at Great George Street to tip off the party's bigwigs about a fellow called Hancock. Between you and me, gentle reader, he has been up to no good in both Portsmouth and far Azerbaijan, and the party must Do Something about him - I am also told that Fleet Street's finest are on his case. "Don't worry," says a one of the nobs, "we are well aware that there may be problems coming down the track, so we have someone working full-time on our response to the Hancock Affair. It's Benjamin over there." I look across ...
We ended the Liberal Democrat conference today on a high note. Ni [IMG: 2014-03-09 12.45.53-2] ck Clegg gave one of his best conference speeches, in confident form. We are now learning what this "centre ground" strategy means in practice. Mr Clegg did not utter the dread words in his speech at all. Instead he talked freely about Britishness and liberal, inclusive values. He painted an optimistic, happy picture, to contrast with the sour, pessimistic one that dominates so much of politics now. This went down predictably well with the faithful, but it is a sensible strategy in the wider political ...
President Barner's got a lot to think about As always I am running a little behind the rest of the world and I didn't see the already infamous Gemma Worrell tweet until today. If you haven't seen it here is the wording: Why is our president Barraco Barner getting involved with Russia, scary This tweet has gone world wide and has been used by some commentators as a metaphor for "Dumb Britain." Let's be honest it does look like the comment of a bimbo especially when you factor in that she is a twenty something beautician. Stereotypes, media portrayal of ...
They are, in no particular order: Sitting on your hands while everyone around you, it seems, is voting on policy feels pretty rotten. If we're going to be serious about our democratic credentials, then we need to end that sort of situation. The sooner we can roll out OMOV as a party the better. When you go to a fringe and Jeremy Browne talks about the need to be a more assertively liberal party, and then the next day Nick Clegg closes conference with a speech about building a coalition of liberals, it makes you feel really good about the ...
Spring Conferenceis done for another year, and most Liberal Democrats will be conferenced out. However, the party has just announced that they are returning to Liverpool for the next one. 2500 delegates (who said that no-one goes to Spring Conference?) are expected to descend upon Liverpool in March 2015. The event is being held at ACC Liverpool for the third time. If policy isn't your thing, then there are lots of other things to do in the Beatle's home city. You can drink cocktails at the Albert Dock: SOURCE: Albert Dock Watch Liverpool's football team play at Anfield: SOURCE: Liverpool ...
[IMG: Screen Shot 2014-03-09 at 08.06.08] Liberal Democrats left York with spirits as bright as the sunshine which brought 17 degree warmth to the historic city. Seriously. I was quite surprised about how genuinely upbeat people were. It's not that they'd forgotten that we're defending 12 European Parliament seats in 74 short days' time. By the way, if you think that's along time away, remember that 74 days ago was Boxing Day. Everyone knows the scale of what we have to achieve by then and nobody is taking anything for granted. Even the more, how shall I put this, hardened ...
The Richard Dawkins Foundation thinks calling humans sinful is a sign of religion's backwardness. It's not – it's an indication of Christianity's insight. A few days ago the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science posted this photo to facebook: I came across it when an atheist friend reposted it along with disparaging comments such [...]
I blogged last year about meetings organised by Urbed ( a consultancy) as part of drawing up a "masterplan" for Garston. The consultancy was working on behalf of the Council. Anyway, a report was published and we knew the Council had to decide whether or not to adopt it before any of the recommendations could be put into action deliberately. It all went a bit quiet and in fact we asked just last week about what was happening. The latest news is that the report will be discussed/adopted at the Council's Cabinet meeting on 21 March. The paperwork isn't on ...
[IMG: Modern Housing] What to do about the housing crisis? It's a question that, should you have been so inclined, you could have focused on throughout much of yesterday's proceedings at Liberal Democrat Spring Conference. A motion on the reform of planning policy was passed, unamended, during the morning's official business. The motion was particularly critical of the role of the Planning Inspectorate and the Communities Secretary in overriding local democracy and aspirations. The programme for the conference fringe offered you a near overdose of housing. The lunchtime fringe included a session on social housing jointly organised by CentreForum, The ...
[IMG: Clegg Speech] Nick Clegg is just about to begin his speech to bring to a close the Lib Dems' Spring Conference in York. You can read the full text below. The speech is most striking for its aim to reclaim patriotism. "I love Britain" is the refrain of its opening section (much of which reads a lot like the popular Twitter account, @SoVeryBritish – eg, "I love that we insist on queuing when we go abroad, even when the locals don't."), with Nick listing the things that make him proud to be British. Underpinning this section is that Britain, ...
After The Zombies broke up in 1968 Colin Blunstone briefly held a proper job in insurance. He then set out on a highly regarded solo career. This video from 1971 shows him at his peak. "Say You Don't Mind" is a Denny Lane song, which The Zombies used to perform as an up-tempo number. Blunstone reached no. 15 in the UK singles chart with this very different arrangement.
Sun 9th
11:45Danny Alexander's speech to Lib Dem conference. (AKA: we need to move beyond lists of achievements.)
If you missed it yesterday, you can catch up on Danny Alexander's speech to the Lib Dem spring conference below. Listening to it, and trying to gauge the reaction of the audience of fellow Lib Dems, a couple of things struck me. First, Danny has definitely improved as a public speaker. After almost four years in the cabinet as chief secretary to the treasury, he's much more confident. Perhaps his best line yesterday was when he fended off Tory attempts to steal the credit for the Lib Dems' tax-cuts for low-earners by saying, "There's a big difference between doing something ...
The Observer carries two major stories about the conference today. They comment on the key messages in Nick Clegg's Q&A yesterday afternoon under the headline: Lib Dem conference: stuck in the middle - but with whom?: It is really quite difficult being a Lib Dem these days. In pre-government times, when they were merely the protest party, they could say almost anything that would get them votes. Now, after several years of enjoying power and wanting more, it is all about positioning between two polar opposites while trying at the same time not to lose the party's own identity. But ...
Many of us got books out of the Library on 'Love St Just Library Friday' that we would not normally have taken into our homes. Chatting to many of you, this has been a new experience that may be worth repeating! No no, I'm not suggesting we make a habit of making the Library shelves bare BUT if we all took out 6 fairly random books, once a month, who knows what we might discover! We will also continue to support St Just Library. I will share with you here, some excellent tips I found in one of my random ...
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... Local resident questions the integrity of Channel 4?s video report on Brixton Some serious Qs for Channel 4 News » Local resident questions the integrity of Ch4?s video report on Brixton http://bit.ly/1fg6kaK BBC News – Lib Dem election results, predictions and UKIP threat BBC @daily_politics on "Lib Dem election results, predictions and UKIP threat" http://bbc.in/1fTXwaI fts Tim Farron, Keith House. And me. Liberal England: Ramsbottom is more important than Elvis Labour folk crowing about the Lib Dems being beaten by Bus-Pass Elvis should look ...
As Adam Bienkov tweeted this morning about Danny Alexander: We've got to the stage where employing someone not born in the UK, is now considered a political scandal. Depressing http://t.co/5iTFpc4Lpu — Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) March 9, 2014 Danny Alexander's initial interview answers weren't quite as smooth as they could have been – because, by the sounds of it, he initially misunderstood an ambiguous question. Yet even the newspapers only too ready to put the boot in, have rather more balanced stories once you get beyond the headline (see the Mirror, for example). That may well be helped by the fact ...
Westerleigh Road is expected to be closed between its junctions with Coalsack Lane and Cookes Lane for one week from the 11th April - this is roughly the stretch from Henfield Crossroads to the motorway. The closure is to allow drainage repair works to be carried out.
The party leadership consists almost entirely of white men. Therefore, I was very excited to hear that 2 women are seeking the 200 nominations from a minimum of 20 local parties needed to run for Party President. Pauline Pearce, who created Grandad's Caribbean Seasoning, and is perhaps more famous for standing for the Lib Dems in Hackney Central following the London Riots, is one of the candidates. SOURCE: Hackney Gazette Baroness Sal Brinton is the other. She is currently the Lib Dem health spokesperson within the House of Lords. SOURCE: Guardian Whilst Tim Farron is doing a great job as ...
Back in 2011, Royal Mail closed the well-used and convenient Crichton Street Collection Office, something local residents and I campaigned against, as it means that if residents wish to collect undelivered mail in person at a Royal Mail collection centre, those living in the DD2 area are now covered by the Baird Avenue facility, which is nowhere near the West End and is not well-served by public transport. At the time, I asked Royal Mail if it would allow West End DD2 residents to collect their items at the far more convenient Edward Street facility, but Royal Mail's position is ...
On the BBC's Daily Politics on Friday, Alex Forsyth looked at the Lib Dem fortunes in recent and not-so-recent elections, with predictions for 2014 and 2015 polls. Some familiar faces interviewed, including Tim Farron, Eastleigh's Lib Dem council leader Keith House, and LDV's own Stephen Tall...
German artist Kathrin Sonntag's first major solo exhibition in Scotland ("I see you seeing me see you") is at the Cooper Gallery at Duncan of Jordanstone until 4th April. The exhibition celebrates a small town in Germany famous for inventing the prosthetic glass eye. It also explores the uneasy visual feedback that arises when our gaze meets its artificial double. The video below gives a preview of the exhibition: Further details, including gallery opening times, are available here.
Note from Hertfordshire County Council Temporary Closing of various roads in St Albans NOTICE is given that the Hertfordshire County Council intend to make an Order under Section 14[1] of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, to prohibit all traffic from using the following lengths of roads:- 1. that length of Lemsford Road, St Albans from its junction with Sandpit Lane south eastwards and south westwards to its junction with Manor Road, a distance of approximately 460 metres. The purpose of the Order is to enable carriageway resurfacing works to take place. The sections of roads will each be closed ...
Picking up on David Cameron accidentally starting a meme on Wednesday when when he tweeted a picture of himself looking extremely serious on the phone to Barack Obama, the Guardian features the top five political twitter gaffes. Amongst those tweets are Ed Balls now infamous tweeting of his name that has led to the creation of an Ed Balls Day and George Osborne posting a picture of himself scoffing a late-night takeaway the day before the comprehensive spending review. Except that it soon transpired his burger wasn't from some any old takeaway, it was actually a posh burger from upmarket ...
Welsh Liberal Democrats have called on the Welsh Labour Government to make the most of EU Membership to build Wales's economic future. Not only is Wales a net beneficiary from being a member of the EU, but in fact Wales gets 50% more investment back in grants alone. The £650 million Wales receives each year supports our agricultural sector directly and helps us develop the capacity to grow our economy in Wales' poorest communities. Any development strategy to grow the Welsh economy in the future must acknowledge the critical importance of our membership of the EU. In Wales 150,000 jobs ...
[IMG: image] I watched this "A Better Way" demonstration go past the conference centre this morning. It was organised by the Yorkshire and Humberside TUC. I was just gobsmacked by the whole thing. There were masses of people of all ages and backgrounds, from physiotherapists to actors. The ingenuity which had been put into the many placards was, alone, remarkable. Then I looked at the demo website, which is awesome. The in-depth organisation across wide communities, behind this event, was staggering. The demo was very well behaved, with the participants keeping inside agreed lines. Well done Yorkshire and Humberside TUC. ...
