This is a film Iain Sinclair made for Newsnight about his book Edge of the Orsion, which was based on a walk he made retracing John Clare's steps from Epping to Peterborough. You may also enjoy The Straw Bear takes a stroll through the streets of Peterborough.
Over the weekend, a group of us were helping the Roseangle playpark campaign with its bag packing fundraising at Tesco Riverside, with many thanks to Kath Torode and her colleagues at Tesco for all their help and co-operation. I did a stint this afternoon - see right. Over £475 was raised - an excellent result! A couple of other photographs below: Alice (left) who did all the organising - with some of the team, including volunteers from Texas! Yours truly with some of the volunteers!
Fracking, in my view, is a very risky technology even with the best of safeguards. It would be far better getting far more households with solar power and more efficiency put into our old housing stock. However in Bath and NE Somerset our area is covered by 4 licences and 3 have expired and one has a 1 year extension. I have written to Government asking that the 3 expired licecnes should be revoked and not added into the next sale of licences. The reason is the risk to the world heritage city of Bath and its Spa waters. In ...
In view of Keith Vaz's new-found role as the scourge of secrecy on child abuse, it is interesting to be remembered of a speech he gave in the Commons in December 1991. It was in a debate on contempt of court, which was held after the conviction of Frank Beck for serious sexual offences in Leicestershire children's homes (including two in Market Harborough). In the course of that trial certain accusations were made against Greville Janner, who was then Labour MP for Leicester West and is now a Labour peer. This is part of Keith Vaz's speech in that debate: ...
I was recently asked the question: "Once we reach the total in SAMDev, can we stop giving planning permission for more houses?" The answer is: "Probably No". There is every likelihood that we could end up with more housing than the SAMDev total before the current local plan expires in 2026. The Site Allocations and [...]
Jane Merrick reports in the Independent on Sunday that reports that Nick Clegg will not be conducting a reshuffle of Liberal Democrat ministers on Tuesday when David Cameron's reshuffles his team. As part of a concerted effort by Lib Dems for a "conscious uncoupling" from the Conservatives, he will be holding his reshuffle just before the party conference in the autumn. Merrick quotes an unnamed "Lib Dem Source": "We are under no obligation to be bound to David Cameron's timetable. We have a party conference later this year and at that point we will set out who we will take ...
Ea Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 382nd 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 (6-12 July, 2014), together with a hand-picked quintet, 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. The arrogance of monopoly power by ...
Sun 13th
18:50
Call to Action: Care Quality Commission inspection of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is about to do an inspection of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, who are the trust that provide GRS at Charing Cross. If you have had surgery there in the last 12 months, or if you are on the waiting list for surgery there, then please see below and send [...]
At the start of June, before I sent my complaint, I sent a Freedom of Information request to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust regarding Gender Realignment Surgery (GRS) at Charing Cross. By law they should have replied by the 30th June, but they didn't meet that deadline or provide an explanation despite me reminding them. [...]
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe: You can also watch this on YouTube.
A joint Liberty, Privacy International, Open Rights Group, Article 19, Big Brother Watch, English PEN briefing on the emergency surveillance powers announced by the coalition government claims powers granted by the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (DRIP) would breach Human Rights legislation. In an email sent to parliamentarians Liberty make the following statement: "Clause 1 of the Bill contains powers for the Government to continue to mandate blanket retention of communications data within the UK for 12 months. This is in direct contradiction of a CJEU judgment, delivered in April, which held that blanket indiscriminate retention of such private ...
Sun 13th
14:50
The Independent View: Lib Dems have cause to be concerned about the data retention bill
[IMG: web snoopers charter] Many Liberal Democrats are congratulating themselves on a 'sensible compromise' on the emergency data retention bill, DRIP. I am afraid they are deeply wrong, and want to explain a little about why. The first, most important point, is that DRIP doesn't answer any of the points made by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) about data retention laws. Most importantly, they ask for an end to blanket retention, saying that retention must relate to specific threats, and be confined by specific criteria, such as a time period, geography, or a set of people ...
[IMG: 7 ver 4 full] Many thanks to the 14100 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Mike Bell resigns as candidate for Weston-Super-Mare for family and work reasons and Welsh Liberal Democrat Councillor joins Labour (12 comments) by The Voice (Not) the Snoopers' Charter, where we are, how we got here, what we should look for and what should happen next (51 comments) by The Voice Ashcroft battlegrounds poll: Lib Dems set to lose four marginal seats to Labour (41 comments) by Stephen Tall Jo Swinson tipped to replace Ed Davey in ...
I am one of those Liberal Democrats who firmly believes it was the right thing for the party to go into Coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, despite being distinctly centre-left personally. Besides, the LibDem special conference in Birmingham overwhelmingly endorsed the move. The Rose Garden political bromance was a bit too cordial, maybe, but [...]
[IMG: London Stock Exchange photo by Jam_90s] The attempted but abortive Pfizer takeover bid for AstraZeneca has triggered a timely political debate in the UK about whether the safeguards in mergers and takeover legislation are adequate - especially when significant research and development assets are at stake. It is now clear to me that some changes should be made.The UK's traditional openness to investment has served us well, and is increasingly important in a global economy. We have rightly resisted the lure of protectionism. The European and domestic competition regimes within which we operate were designed to ensure that mergers ...
The Portsmouth News reports an odd footnote to the allegations against Conservative candidate Michael Mates: East Hampshire's former MP has been paid substantial damages by the Crown Prosecution Service after he was wrongly accused of breaking election law. Police have also apologised to Michael Mates and confirmed that he was not guilty of any offence during his attempt to become Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in 2012. He served as the East Hampshire MP for 36 years... After an investigation by police, the CPS said that it would not be in the public interest ...
Sun 13th
11:48
Man dropped trousers and underpants, exposing himself, in Leicester branch of Tesco to prove he was ...
Congratulations to the Leicester Mercury for winning our Headline of the Day Award.
Reports have reached me of a church holding an event in Dublin this weekend promoting its super "cure". Pink News has an article about it. Having this article, I had a look at the Genesis II Church website and was scared that they are seriously proposing that the International Red Cross Treat the victims of...
As football chants go this is actually rather classy in a needling-the-opposition-sort-of-way. Not sure about the claim that Maradona is greater then Pele but I suppose that depends on your perspective. English sub-titles at one minute ten seconds in.
Paul Zukowskyj, Lib Dem County Councillor for Hatfield South, where Herts County Council wanted to build a massive waste-burning plant in the green belt, has put down a motion asking HCC to own up to, and apologise for, the catalogue of errors in bringing forward plans for the development. On Tuesday 8th July, campaigners learnt that the Secretary of State and the Planning Inquiry inspector both agreed the plant should not be granted planning permission. HCC have spent huge amounts of council-tax payers money on pushing the development in the face of massive opposition. Paul commented "Even now the Council ...
I thought we'd scraped the bottom of the barrel when these photos of poor Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich led to him being mocked in virtually every publication in the UK. But it gets worse. The other day I sighed when I saw the headline "Ed Miliband is less cool than Sir Menzies Campbell". Apparently YouGov has been spending time and money asking people how cool a group of current and former party leaders are. Unsurprisingly, nobody makes it out of the negatives: [IMG: You Gov Cool poll] It's certainly true than any vestiges of coolness are generally removed ...
On Tuesday we saw a photo of T-Bone Walker playing at what I knew as the Wyvern in Granby Street, Leicester. So here is playing for the BBC the same year. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame says of him: T-Bone Walker's single-string solos influenced blues players like B.B. King and such rockers as Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. As Pete Welding wrote: "T-Bone Walker is the fundamental source of the modern urban style of playing and singing the blues. The blues was different before he came onto the scene, and it hasn't been the same since."And "T-Bone"? His ...
I don't get to watch BBC's Andrew Marr show that often, enjoyable as it is to watch the great and the good unable to give a straight answer. Admittedly participants rarely represent the masses as far as social backgrounds particularly since many like the presenter Marr have attended fee paying schools, but can someone tell me why the BBC with all its nonsense about diversity cannot bring itself to have a male newsreader on the Sunday mornings main current affairs programme. I'm not saying they've never had a male newsreader on this programme but I've never seen it.
Outlines my concerns about #DRIP clearly and succinctly Especially salient lines being: "None of the safeguards, with the exception of the sunset clause, are actually in the Bill. We have to take the word of the party leaders these safeguards will actually be implemented. It's not even clear if the sunset clause (ending the legislation on 31 December 2016) is worth a jot. It's possible what is called a statutory instrument, a mini amendment, could delete the clause and extend the legislation forever without even a full vote by our parliamentarians." (tags: ) Tessa Munt: Sexual abuse ruined my life ...
Sun 13th
09:56
The end of jazz music: the late 1960's and the deaths of Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Albert Ayler
[IMG: dolphy_coltrane] I was depressed a lot when I was younger. A lot of this had to do with the fact that I was living somewhere I loathed, wanted to escape from, but did not yet know how. I filled a lot of space listening to music, and when I was really down I would turn to Eric Dolphy. I would put on my Walkman, stuffed with the cassette tape I'd recorded the records from, and stroll aimlessly around one of the industrial slag heaps near where I grew up. I'd listen to Eric wail his ass off and then ...
One for those who have followed the details of internal Liberal Democrat debates over House of Lords reform*: How David [Steel] squares his long-standing commitment to a fully elected House [of Lords] with the excuses for inaction he keeps handing to the 'not at any price' refuseniks is quite beyond me. Taken from Who Decides? by Paul Tyler. *A reminder of the relevant part: The failure of David Steel's Lords reform measure is good news.
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... Liberal Hero of the Week #72: Vince Cable | CentreForum Blog My choice of @CentreForum Liberal Hero of the Week #72 is Vince Cable http://bit.ly/1nokxef Lib Dem supporter crosses floor to UKIP – on day he is up for election (From This Is Local London) Local politics, eh? >> "Lib Dem supporter crosses floor to UKIP – on day he is up for election" http://bit.ly/1oOAs4S What I miss about meetings is the doodling | Freethinking Economist /@gilesyb clearly wasted as an economist > What ...
As rumours grow of a major government reshuffle next week, the Independent reports that Nick Clegg is opting out and will be deferring any changes he wants to make until just before the Liberal Democrats Conference in October. The paper says that this leaves Nick Clegg with the option to move Alistair Carmichael as Scottish Secretary after the independence referendum on 18 SeptemberL Speculation had been that Mr Carmichael, who was brought in as a more combative figure for the Better Together campaign, would be axed this week in favour of Jo Swinson. Yet this would have been seized on ...
There's a quiet transformation going on within conservative Christianity (at least in Europe and North America). As the evidence that homsexuality is a real and natural phenomenon which cannot be gotten rid of by therapy this seems to be softening attitudes. Perhaps inevitably celibacy has emerged as a way of squaring the circle of acknowledging homosexuality [...]
Sun 13th
08:45A longer read for the weekend... Edward Lucas on the threat posed to peace by Russia and what the We...
[IMG: edward lucas] Edward Lucas worked for Paddy Ashdown, has helped at by-elections, and was active in the National League of Young Liberals (NLYL) and the Union of Liberal Students (ULS). He's better known, though, for being a senior editor at The Economist and an expert on energy, cyber-security, espionage, Russian foreign and security policy and the politics and economics of Eastern Europe. In 2008 he wrote The New Cold War, a prescient account of Vladimir Putin's Russia. In 2011 he wrote Deception, an investigative account of east-west espionage. And earlier this year, he published The Snowden Operation, in which ...
From the City Council : THE ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984 SECTION 14(1) THE DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL AS TRAFFIC AUTHORITY being satisfied that waiting on the road should be prohibited by reason of Scottish Water repair works being carried out HEREBY PROHIBIT all vehicular traffic from waiting in : West Park Road (between Scotswood Terrace and Blackness Road), Dundee Blackness Road (between numbers 378 to 382 and numbers 325 to 341), Dundee This notice comes into effect on Wednesday 16 July 2014 for one day. Pedestrian thoroughfare will be maintained. For further information contact (01382) 433082. Director of City Development ...
In response to concerns expressed by a number of environmental campaigners Sefton Council has recently produced a briefing note on this matter. You can read it below and my comments at the end. [IMG: Seaforth Docks and hinterland] Seaforth Docks and hinterland This photo is amongst my Flickr shots at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/ ***** The Council is currently undertaking an exercise to review the air quality impacts of port expansion and this will examine the impact of different modes of transporting cargo. This process involves modelling the air quality impacts of the increases in vehicle, train and ship movements associated with port ...
The other day my old chum and former Maghull councillor Roy Connell said that he thought the Copper Beech tree in a garden at the junction of Liverpool Road South and Ormonde Avenue was probably the the most magnificent tree in the Town. Of course Roy has form when it comes to trees as it was he, as this blog site has mentioned before, who got trees planted on the vast traffic island in Maghull's Green Lane (see link below) which will forever more be know as Roy's Roundabout! So I went to have a look and you know ...
I'm enjoying the pleasant reaction to my mild defence of the Mandarins; thanks for the retweets and often violent agreement. I have much more of this coming out in the Autumn with the Institute for Government, inspired in my last few weeks by the excellent pamphlet by Nick Hillman called "In Defence of Special Advisers" [...]
I've just returned from a week's walking holiday in Scotland, based on Pitlochry. I've made no attempt to carry out a straw poll on the independence issue but have had two in-depth conversations. The first was with a well-educated professional whom I already knew slightly and whose views on most general issues I respect. He surprised my be saying he would "probably vote 'Yes'." His reasons were twofold. He feared that the the Tories might withdraw the UK from the EU and that would be a bad move for for all concerned. Better for Scotland to come out of the ...
I will not publicly be blogging about the best semiprozine and best editor short form categories in the Hugos, as I occasionally submit stories to those markets, and it would feel like a conflict of interest. I'll be voting for them, but if I write anything about them it could look like I'm either giving [...]
Julian Huppert MP As a Liberal, I care passionately about civil liberties, privacy, and the need to limit abusive state surveillance. But I also know that there is a need for the police and intelligence agencies to have the tools do the job we give them - as long as they are carefully controlled, appropriately used, and proportionate to the threat faced. Those concerns are key - and I have often been incensed at the way Governments, whether Labour or Tory, have used threats for terrorism or anything else as a reason to chip away at our individual freedoms. We ...
