Some of you, even if you don't attend Oxford University, may have seen a pair of student-generated websites which have gone viral recently. The first, and the most significant, was I Too Am Oxford, where ethnic minority students shared the ... Continue reading →
An article in tomorrow's Guardian explains: The internet is one giant, virtual cat park, its foundation is one of cat fur, and its currency is the miaows of millions of kittens who lie patiently in wait for you on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, acting like they pretty much own the place. These are indisputable facts, but nobody has ever been able to come up with a suitable answer to the attendant question: why? Why are there so many cats on the internet? The problem is that they are asking the wrong question, which should not be "Why cats?" so much ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 368th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (9-15 March, 2014), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. UKIP and its ...
Spike: Oh no! My ball has gone under the sofa! I can't reach it no matter how hard I try! And I'm trying REALLY hard! Just. Can't. Quite... Reach... Someone take pity on me! *sad puppy face* Human! Would you - COULD you - get my ball out from under the sofa for me? * eventually one of us takes pity and retrieves the errant ball from under the sofa before he claws holes in the carpet trying to get it out himself * Spike: I LOVE YOU, human! See how I toss my ball in the air for sheer ...
Consider this story I just came across, admittedly on 'LifeChoice News', but carrying a local television story from Sherman, Texas. The story is this: this self-employed contractor was previously on his wife's insurance, but her employer stopped providing coverage. A lot of employers have used the excuse of the Affordable Care Act to stop providing spousal coverage, when Obamacare in fact has little to do with it. Anyway, back to the Hubbses. So, Lenny was dropped from his wife's insurance, and they are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. (We aren't told if they would qualify for Obamacare's Medicaid ...
A final few surprising gems from my collection of random books. I hope that some of you will re-visit the Library again on Friday March 21, the date all our books were stamped on 'Love St Just Library Friday'. Take a friend or two and get a few random books for each other to take you places that will stretch your mind and surprise you! The more we use our local Library, the more difficult it will be to take any further hours out and the easier it will be for us to get more resources and grants. Attention Seekers ...
I recently joined Sutton Council leader Ruth Dombey and councillors overseeing the Hackbridge and Beddington area renewal projects on a visit to the Thames Water Sewage Treatment Works in Beddington Lane. During the visit Thames Water talked us through their plans to invest millions in the Beddington site to improve their operations and reduce the [...]
[IMG: Danny Alexander by Paul Walter] Linking to the Daily Mail usually brings me out in hives, but there are occasions when it's ok. Danny Alexander taking down Lord Lawson for suggesting that further tax cuts should be focused on higher earners is one such case. In today's paper he starts by reminding people that it was a Liberal Democrat priority to cut taxes for the lowest earners. He missed a trick by reminding people where Tory hearts lay – an inheritance tax cut for the rich, but that's by the by. Right from the formation of the coalition in ...
Liberal Democrat Euro-candidates have been urged by sitting MEPs not to sign pledges presented to them in the run-up to the European elections on 22 May — and given the tuition fees pledge fiasco after the 2010 general election the caution is understandable. In general, anyhow, I prefer to give a reasoned answer to individual [...]
Sun 16th
15:56
Arfon Lib Dem call for more support for local businesses through Bangor Pride project.
Arfon Liberal Democrats were pleased to hear that in a report which scrutinised the Bangor Pride project, the project was praised for its successes. The project which was set up by Gwynedd and Bangor Councils, the Police, Keep Wales Tidy, and the Environment Agency with the aim of improving the city for residents and visitors [...]
I have not tried to take photographs of all of the parade. Others are doing that with better cameras than my phone. I shall see if I can bring together links to photos of the parade later. I have, therefore, only one photo and one video. and This parade was the best weather for over 10 years. 2003 (if I have the year right) when the parade went to Victoria Square was really quite hot.
Should churches: a) be loving their neighbours, or b) using an obscure centuries old law to stick them with cost of repairing buildings they may never have set foot in? What is Chancel Repair Liability? According to the Land Registry: Chancel repair liability requires landowners to pay for the repair of the chancel (the part [...]
Many thanks to the 15,300 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... 17 policies on which Labour and the Lib Dems now agree (21 comments) by Stephen Tall Nick Clegg's speech to Spring Conference in full (71 comments) by Stephen Tall Five reasons why Liberal Democrats are leaving York in good spirits (30 comments) by Caron Lindsay Opinion: My resignation from Federal Conference Committee (6 comments) by Kelly-Marie Blundell By-election update: Lib Dems take two seats from Tories in Canterbury and Ludlow (21 comments) by ALDC Suspicions of Lib-Labbery (44 comments) by Joe ...
Some years of blogging and reflection on the crazy world of Thanet has drained me, while most commentators to this blog have shown evidence of sanity I look outside and see Thanet is without a doubt broken although just a fragment of a larger delusional world. Fortunately I've been too busy to comment on the evidence of corruption and shear incompetence of local political leaders, this weeks seen a cry from one our usual big noises for a crack den or something similar, the local paper mentions a huge demand for a gay quarter in Ramsgate, something I;ve never understood ...
[IMG: University of the West of England, laboratory, science. Some rights reserved by Jisc] Tim Farron has been writing for the Adam Smith Institute – there's a sentence we didn't expect ever to write – about turning the UK's universities into entrepreneurial hubs. The Lib Dem party president is familiar with the sector, having worked in higher education at Lancaster University before entering Parliament. Here's an excerpt: Britain has a historically poor record of turning our scientists into entrepreneurs. Too often we have favoured the image of the mad professor or boffin, absent-mindedly beavering away in their lab, oblivious to ...
For those of us who support the concept of a high speed rail link between London and the north of England, Vince Cable's plea in today's Independent to speed up the implementation of HS2 makes a great deal of sense. The paper reports that the Secretary of State for Business believes that there is a compelling case for bringing the project forward: Mr Cable, Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, told The Observer: "Creating jobs outside London, and closing the gap between north and south, has been one of this Government's top priorities. "On every visit I make to the north ...
We're doing the housing policy debate all wrong. That, at least, is the argument Danny Dorling advances in his recent book All that is solid: The great housing disaster. [IMG: all_that_is_solid_danny_dorling] At the heart of the book is the claim that the focus on increasing the supply of new homes misses the point. If you look at the statistics it is clear that there is pretty much enough housing relative to population - even in the areas of highest housing pressure - it is just that it is increasingly unequally distributed. You can't understand what is happening in the housing ...
[IMG: mark and ros at equal marriage vigil] The relationship between Stonewall and the Liberal Democrats would be described, in Facebook terms, as "it's complicated." We might share many of the same goals, but it can all get a bit spiky between us from time to time. The Observer reports that their former chief executive Ben Summerskill has attacked the Liberal Democrats for being opportunistic over equal marriage, not passing our policy before 2010. In fact, there was huge support within the party for equal marriage and earlier in 2010, the Scottish Party had passed its policy in support. The ...
We all know Elvis's version of Hound Dog, but the original song is far better. It was written by two white teenagers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and recorded by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton - you can hear that 1952 recording on Youtube too. The words of the original version are sexier and make more sense. It is a song sung by a woman who is throwing her no-good man out: You ain't nothing but a hound dog Been snooping 'round my door You can wag your tail But I ain't gonna feed you no moreThe sanitised, near-nonsense version ...
Making your first speech at a political conference is tough, especially when you know that the media are watching you as well as delegates there. That didn't stop me, as a first-time conference attendee, from making a speech to the Lib Dem Spring Conference in York last Sunday, on the Digital Bill of Rights motion. Having been persuaded to by Julian Huppert and Tim Farron to mention digital freedom at Conference, I decided to make such a speech, which I reproduce below: Good morning Conference, I stand here to make my first speech because digital freedom is an issue on ...
[IMG: Cancun, Mexico. Some rights reserved by Nicolas Karim] How, you might ask, did we fail to cover this story this week? In a speech to lobby journalists, Lib Dem chief whip turned Scottish secretary Alistair Carmichael regaled them with this story of the inner workings of the whips office, as the tuition fees vote neared: 'One thing which I was thinking about recently was that Chris Huhne, in the interests of tackling climate change, had managed to be at some big summit in Cancun, so was not available to take part in the division on the day and it ...
There's a very readable piece in The Observer today about the Tory leadership positioning, and the problems Boris faces in putting himself in poll position. But I think it misses one crucial point out. Boris doesn't need the Tories to win in 2015. If they do, Cameron is safe until 2020, after which the next generation of Tories are more likely to take up the leadership mantle. But he can't be seen to actively want the Tories to lose either. That would be suicidal for his leadership credentials. And anyway, he presumably doesn't want them to lose. So he is ...
Sun 16th
10:03
You won't notice the benefit for years, but something rather important happened last year
News in this week from the Office of National Statistics: In 2013, the proportion of employees who belonged to a workplace pension increased to 50%, the first increase since 2006. As Steve Webb has said before of his pension reforms: "This policy is a stunning success. That's why you haven't heard about it" – Steve Webb on pension auto-enrolment #ldconf — Mark Pack (@markpack) March 9, 2013
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... The Other (and more relevant) Tony Benn « Steven Fielding V interesting from @PolProfSteve on the two Tony Benns. Benn Mk1 (an early Miliband) v Benn Mk2 (the later Bennite) http://bit.ly/1fItYS6 Time for Gove | Conservative Home Layered profile of Michael Gove from @PaulGoodmanCH: Time for Gove | Conservative Home http://bit.ly/1kSVrnq Lib Dem candidate Maajid Nawaz tells Hampstead audience: 'Muslims find liberalism reprehensible' – News – Hampstead and Highgate Express /@majjidnawaz is a great advert for liberalism. Best of luck to him in Hampstead ...
This post is sponsored by eBay. I've been asked by eBay to put together a series of collections. As an international trend-setter*, it is my sincere pleasure to gather up the best that eBay has to offer. For example, here is a collection dedicated to the Galaxy Note 3. [IMG: eBay Collection Galaxy Note 3] It's a mixture of kit I've bought, or stuff that I really want. You can see all of my collections on eBay. *Well... [IMG: flattr this!]
Ben Summerskill lies. @lfeatherstone tells it like it is. (tags: ) Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers. You Just Brought Back Measles in NYC. - The Daily Beast (tags: ) Gender-specific books demean all our children. So the Independent on Sunday will no longer review anything marketed to exclude either sex 3 Thank you the indy (tags: ) 25 things you may have forgotten about the internet - unashamed nostalgic trip here (tags: ) Female Armour Bingo (1/2) (tags: ) Apologia for crap female armour bingo (2/2) (tags: ) The dangers inherent in seeing Hitler as inhuman " Stop dehumanizing Hitler just so you ...
Sun 16th
08:55
Jenny Willott writes... How Lib Dems are giving families choice through shared parental leave and fl...
[IMG: Parents and child - Some rights reserved by Ed Yourton] As a mother with two small children myself, I know how hard it can be to balance work and family life. And as a Lib Dem, I firmly believe in equal opportunities for all and tackling discrimination, whatever form it takes. So I am really excited that with Lib Dems in Government, we are shaking up the status quo to make it easier for parents with young children to arrange their work/life balance however best suits them. We need to challenge the old-fashioned assumption that women will always be ...
My latest in the New Statesman - which I see has twice as many comments over there as the article that prodded it, written by Douglas Alexander. Which I find quite funny. "Having served for nearly half a century in the House of Commons, I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so."While it's 15 years since he said that, Tony Benn's words today seem more apposite than ever, albeit in a way he didn't intend. For democracy seems to be in a very poor state of repair just now, and power seems to ...
On behalf of residents, I have raised complaints about a street lighting fault in Elm Street - its been particularly between 16 to 22 Elm Street. I raised this with the City Council's Street Lighting Partnership who have responded as follows: "I have checked out the maintenance works on the lighting column No. 4 Elm Street I see from our history that there has been several visits to this column it appears to be an intermittent fault. I have had the unit checked today and left on test to try and pinpoint the fault. If this fault occurs again I ...
Welsh Government statistics published this week on the Houses into Homes scheme have shown that in the 18 month period between the scheme being launched and September 2013, only 313 houses have been brought back into use. The Government's target is 5,000 empty homes being restored to habitation over the five year Assembly term. Figures published in January show that there are 19,764 empty and unfurnished homes across Wales which are currently exempt from council tax. In addition there are a further 5,604 dwellings which are exempt as a result of being vacant on the death of the occupant or ...
In his parting shot after stepping down as chief executive of Stonewall last month Ben Summerskill has taken one last swipe in today's Observer at the Liberal Democrats over their stance being the first UK-wide party to adopt a policy on equal marriage. He says we were cynical to pass it just after we entered Government in 2010, but this of course is another case of Summerskill's selective amnesia. The Lib Dems are a Federal Party which sometimes means that party policy can start out in one of the other state parties before it comes to the Federal platform. This ...
Thank you everyone. I won the byelection by nearly two hundred votes. I am humbled by the big majority. It means that people from across the political spectrum voted for me. It shows that this election has not been about party politics. It's been about getting a decent deal for Ludlow from Shropshire Council. It [...]
I feel the need to get something off my chest on what is just about the liveliest third-rail topic in any country's politics. One of the things that has bothered me for a very long time (amid a very long list) about those who scream from the rooftops that the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") is going to destroy civilisation and America's health care system ("the greatest in the world" unless you use pretty much any metric used to measure the quality of health care systems) is the fact that very, very many of them identify as being anti-abortion (or "pro-life" ...
St Luke's Church, Sunday 16th March, 4pmThe Liberal Democrats are currently running a consultation with members on the 2015 General Election Manifesto. As part of this, the Cambridge Liberal Democrats are holding a Policy Forum this Sunday. The event will be led by Julian Huppert MP, who sits on the party's Manifesto Working Group. The event starts at 4pm, at St Luke's Church, Victoria Road, CB4 3DZ. So come along, listen to the debate, and input a few ideas yourself. Refreshments will be provided, and non-members are also welcome. For more information on our manifesto process and to have your ...
