#79034473 / gettyimages.com Getty Images UK captions this: A Police motorcyclist from the Leicester City Police Force stops the traffic for school children to cross the road safely.But it also shows the wires and tracks for city's tram system, which closed the year this photo was taken.
This is the five hundredth post on this blog. It is, of course, an entirely arbitrary milestone, but it nonetheless causes you to reflect on why you do it. Five hundred posts translates into well over half a million words, at a rate of ten or so posts a month over nearly four years. That's a lot of words, taking up a lot of time. I have written before about why I blog. I have blogged on how I got started, and how I reconcile being a political blogger with my other identity as a senior academic. What I wrote ...
The former world chess champion and brave liberal wrote as follows for the Wall Street Journal in March after Vladimir Putin had seized the Crimea from Ukraine: If the West punishes Russia with sanctions and a trade war, that might be effective eventually, but it would also be cruel to the 140 million Russians who live under Mr. Putin's rule. And it would be unnecessary. Instead, sanction the 140 oligarchs who would dump Mr. Putin in the trash tomorrow if he cannot protect their assets abroad. Target their visas, their mansions and IPOs in London, their yachts and Swiss bank ...
The greatest Leicester band of the Sixties was Family. Here they are filmed at the Speakeasy in London in late 1967. The combination of blues and psychedelia reminds you that they were playing in the same era as Traffic and Jethro Tull. BBC Music says of them: Family were an English rock band that formed in late 1966 and disbanded in October 1973. Their style has been characterised as progressive rock, as their sound often explored other genres, incorporating elements of styles such as folk, psychedelia, acid, jazz fusion and rock and roll. The band achieved recognition in the United ...
Listening to Tim Farron's Beveridge Memorial Lecture at the Social Liberal Forum (SLF) conference yesterday - the New Statesman has reproduced the full text - I was puzzling to work out who he reminded me of. Then I worked it out. Take this passage: So, while the right argument for HS2 is about capacity not speed, the argument for HS3, 4, 5, 6 is about speed. A high speed link between Hull and Liverpool, through Leeds, Bradford and Manchester; from the West Country, from East Anglia to the Midlands, from Wales to the Midlands and the north, from Carlisle to ...
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There are planning applications or pre-application discussions for more than 500 houses in Ludlow at the moment. Most are on greenfield sites and some are not in SAMDev. Here are the major proposals. Site Dwellings Land type? Status In SAMDev? Reference Off Bromfield Road Up to 215 Greenfield Decision on outline planning permission 22 July [...]
[IMG: Tim Farron] 'I'm not Nick, I don't have a privileged background, I agree with you on lots of things and I can give a good speech'. That was Tim Farron's message in a nutshell when he gave the William Beveridge Memorial Lecture to the Social Liberal Forum conference on Saturday. For the audience he was addressing, it was an effective speech. It got a standing ovation from a good part of the audience, something which is a rarity at Liberal Democrat events outside of party conference. But telling a group of social liberals that we need more social liberalism ...
I have just had a very enjoyable Sunday lunch in the Gower Hotel, set in the picturesque Bishopston Valley next to St Teilo's Church. I would happily recommend the hotel if you wish to eat or to stay on the edge of the Gower area of outstanding natural beauty. It is located just few minutes drive from the lovely villages of Kittle and Bishopston and within striking distance of Caswell Bay, Pwll du Bay, Brandy Cove and Pennard Cliffs at Southgate. From Southgate you can explore the old haunts of Gower poet, Vernon Watkins, a friend of Dylan Thomas (and ...
[IMG: 7 ver 4 full] Many thanks to the 17,000 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... UPDATED: Sarah Yong stands down as Lib Dem candidate for marginal seat of Somerton and Frome (12 comments) by Stephen Tall ++ Breaking... Clegg: "We must axe Bedroom Tax" (72) by Caron Lindsay Lessons must be learned from the Jo Swinson speculation (36) by Caron Lindsay ICM poll: Tories edge ahead of Labour, while Ukip collapse to 4th behind Lib Dems (18) by Stephen Tall Reshuffle: One Nation Toryism has gone to meet its maker (29) ...
Lafrowda Day 2014 was blessed with sunshine, excellent and varied music, great food and a community spirit that several visitors commented on. I will not name names but there were people from Penzance saying it was better than Golowan so the Lafrowda crew can be rightly proud and take a week off before thinking of next year!! I kept commenting, all day, how wonderful it was to see performers aged from teens to 70′s and revelers from tots to pensioners. Yes, if people want to be critical, there were some who drank too much and may not have been on ...
In the latest of our series of guest posts about beauty and faith, Ed Watson of Ed's Eye View questions the terms of the debate and concludes that "we cannot argue for either Christianity or atheism on the basis of beauty." I'm writing this as a sort of joint response to two excellent pieces [...]
[IMG: Greg GB 3] Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem MP for Leeds North, made a little bit of history last week: On Saturday 12th July I had the huge honour of becoming the first MP to pull on the famous Great Britain white shirt with the red and blue 'V', and play for his country at rugby league. I was selected as part of the 20 man GB side who defeated Australia in the over 35s international in Warrington. How did he get on? Well, you can find out over at the party's Ad Lib blog, where Greg has all the ...
I posted a link to Tim Farron's rather good speech on Tumblr yesterday. Someone who'd been following me there for a few weeks posted Standard Aggressive Rant Number Five in response (take the couple of lines saying Thatcher wasn't utterly evil out of the context of a speech that says she was wrong about everything [...]
According to the leaked BNP membership list from 2009 Terry Paton used his real name, home address and mobile number which is a bit odd for someone who was supposed to be 'undercover'. Most interestingly is that his name appears in the list entitled 'Apr 01 onwards' suggesting he was a member for at least eight years. Kingston Conservatives have some serious explaining to do.
Lynne Featherstone, International Development Minister and the UK's Ministerial champion to tackle violence against women and girls abroad, discusses the progress being made in eliminating female genital mutilation (FGM): Sign up to back the campaign here.
Sun 20th
14:00
Clegg refused to speak to Gove "for months", told Cameron "life is too short" to continue rowing
[IMG: Nick Clegg Q&A 19] That's the claim in today's Independent: Nick Clegg has refused to speak to Michael Gove "for months", according to a source close to the Deputy Prime Minister, revealing the extent of the breakdown at the heart of the coalition. Mr Clegg was involved in a number of vicious stand-offs with Mr Gove over his unpopular, reformist agenda before his shock demotion from Education Secretary to Chief Whip in last week's reshuffle. The row escalated after the Lib Dems forced through a free school meals policy for five- and six-year-olds last year that was opposed by ...
Two women came to my surgery to ask if I would support the call for an Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse – and of course an inquiry is now on the way. But what I said to them was whilst I was happy to have an inquiry – more than that – I wanted the police to follow-up on allegations and where they could get enough evidence – prosecution, conviction and prison should follow. What sort of country are we where our children can be defiled – and worse? They also asked me if I would put this on the ...
Sun 20th
13:06
Dishonourable, Disgraceful and Despicable: Putin the Blunderer must pay the price for his brutal inc...
For the last few months the government of the Russian Federation has been on the offensive on multiple fronts. In cyberspace, in Syria and Iraq, Russian government agents have been active against Western interests. Internationally, through RT and other mouthpieces, official or not, Moscow has created a slick propaganda machine to set out a case against Western policies. Domestically in Russia, of course the free media has finally ceased to exist. Increasingly, Human Rights have been crushed and what passes for Russian political culture is wrapped in a brutal authoritarianism whose strident nationalism strongly resembles those of the Fascist dictatorships ...
[IMG: jo swinson Alex Folkes/Fishnik Photography] In an email to party members, Jo Swinson, Lib Dem Minister for Consumer Affairs & Equalities, has launched a new campaign to deliver equal pay in the workplace: Shockingly, in 2012 women were paid nearly 20% less than their male colleagues. It is an unacceptable difference and one the Liberal Democrats are determined to tackle. Today [Friday] we're announcing plans to require large companies to publish the difference in pay between male and female workers. This will create pressure from staff and customers to close any pay gap and deliver real equality in the ...
Something has just recently struck me that the wording in Schedule 2 of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 may actually be worded in such as way that the Northern Ireland Act 1998 cannot support the wording. Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 states: 75 Statutory duty on public authorities.(1)A public authority shall in carrying out its functions relating to Northern Ireland have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity— (a)between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation; (b)between men and women generally; (c)between persons with ...
[IMG: Spare Bedroom Photo by Flack Jack] The Lib Dems announced a few days ago the party's 2015 manifesto would propose reform of the 'bedroom tax' / 'spare room subsidy', which would means no tenant would have any of their housing benefit withdrawn unless they had turned down an offer of a smaller property. It was a long overdue climbdown – as I wrote in April 2013: "The principle of the 'bedroom tax', then — to try and maximise the availability of social housing and reduce the chronic waiting lists — is a reasonable one. Where the policy clearly breaks ...
I headed down to Dunston Activity Centre on Friday evening to go to the Highways Agency's exhibition about the A1 improvements from the south of the Team Valley to the Metrocentre. This stretch of road, now one of the most congested in the UK, is to be upgraded to have 3 lanes in both directions. A separate slip road from the A692 at Lobley Hill to Askew Road (A184) will also be built within
There are many reasons why the Welsh Government's proposed M4 relief road should not go ahead, not least the environmental impact, but also because it is based on questionable traffic projections, ties up all the borrowing provision in one corner of Wales, flies in the face of the aims of their own Future Generations bill and undermines efforts to promote and develop public transport alternatives. It is the latter reason that Gerry Holtham concentrates on in this article in the Western Mail. He asks whether the government's plan to build a £1bn M4 relief road alongside developing a "transformative" South ...
[IMG: reading summer - photo by hans van der berg] The newspapers are awash with summer best-reads at the moment, as well-known writers pick the books to relax with by the pool. You know the kind of thing: "It's at this time of year I typically embark on re-reading Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, translating it into Russian (which I'm learning to relax as I prepare for my Grade 8 piano exam) from our rustic cottage in Tuscany." Or, alternatively: "Here's a book written by my mate." Always eager to copy a trite-and-tested and formula, here's my list. ...
Single mothers 'do just as good a job as couples' This has been reasonably well known for ages among those who pay attention to the science. As someone said on twitter: "this is only news because some people are judgmental arseholes". (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission has been surrounded in controversy and conflicting stories in the UK. What the European Commission is: The European Commission is the EU's civil service. It drafts proposals aimed at delivering the policy priorities set by EU member states like Britain, Germany, Spain or Poland. It's independent and represents the interests of the European Union as a whole. It is small in size (smaller than Birmingham City Council) and it provides the policy expertise necessary to make a reality the political wishes of Prime Ministers and Ministers from around the ...
[IMG: Putinista] I write about Russia, and by extension, Vladimir Putin, a reasonable amount. As a result, through various social media outlets, I am exposed to a wide range of views on the Russian president. I get some pro-Putin stuff from people inside of Russia, which doesn't interest me all that much. Most of it is really crazy anyhow, like the idea floated to me the other day by a Russian chap around how Putin had been on board MH17 and that's why the Ukrainians shot it down. How Vlad managed to get off the flight, assumedly parachuting to safety ...
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention in the past couple of days... A Brief History of Bloggering – The Morning News 'A Brief History of Bloggering': "He had over 5 regular readers, 2 of them via RSS, a huge success by Brit standards" http://bit.ly/1pqqaa6 Restaurant Watches Old Surveillance And Shares Shocking Results On Craigslist Claim that customers' phone obsession slowing down restaurant service http://bit.ly/1jJtlLX (I've never seen such extreme behaviour tbh) Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash reveals a true war: Vladimir Putin sowed the chaos that led to tragedy. Anne Applebaum spot on in this article: ...
Visitors to this site will realise that I have a great love for trains and I was delighted to purchase an old photo of a place where my Grandad Walter used to take me as a toddler to the watch trains go by. [IMG: 41940 Kirkby in Ashfield Station 1951 P] This is the very spot in Kirkby In Ashfield as Walter Calladine lived only yards away down Urban Road. I would think my visits to this now long gone station and level crossing started when I was around 2 in 1960. This shot was actually taken in 1951 some ...
Sun 20th
08:30Tim Farron's Beveridge Lecture in full: "Let's say a huge yes to active, ambitious, liberal governme...
[IMG: Tim Farron MP speaks at the rally] Lib Dem party president Tim Farron delivered the Beveridge Lecture at this weekend's Social Liberal Forum conference. Here's what he said... William Beveridge never led our country or our party. But he changed both in a spectacular way. He was a humble man, a good man and so I am going to make an assumption that he'd want to know what social Liberals plan to do next, rather than hear us eulogise about him. It's a massive honour to be asked to give this lecture - I fully count myself as a ...
The local paper in Kingston leads on a strange story that one of Kingston's Conservative councillors was a member of the BNP in 2009. Councillor Terry Paton claims that this was because he was working undercover as a private investigator having left the Met police. The Kingston Guardian quotes that when he left the police in 1999 - ten years earlier - he set himself up as a private investigator and his BNP membership was simply part of an undercover investigation. Paton was the Tory candidate in the July 2013 New Malden by-election caused by the resignation of disgraced former ...
Back in May, Dundee City Council promised me to ensure a permanent solution to the broken electronic doors at its headquarters will be implemented by the end of the month. As I indicated at the time : "... the electronic doors at Dundee House have been out of action very regularly recently and it's a real difficulty in particular for elderly people and people with disabilities as the manual doors are quite heavy and not that easy to operate. It is extremely difficult for someone with a pram or in a mobility scooter or wheelchair to use the manual doors." ...
Southwark Council officers have won a number of awards for cracking down on fraud. It's been a long journey over many years working well with the Police, fraud specialists and supported by all councillors to get serious about fraud. Reactive fraud work for the last financial year resulted in 290 sanctions around council rented properties – recovered tenancies, benefits sanctions, etc. Another 151 properties were recovered. But the National Fraud Authority estimates 4% of Southwark's 45,000 tenanted properties will be done so fraudulently – that's 1,800 properties. So we clearly still have a huge problem to solve. This would make ...
NHS will be seven-day service by 2017 Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director of NHS England, has pledged that by March 2017 patients will get the same level of treatment at weekends as they receive during the week. In an interview with the Times, Sir Bruce said: "The acid test for people working in the health service is to ... ask themselves if they genuinely think the service at the weekend is as good as they would like for a member of their own family. Most people tell me that they don't think that it is and that is why ...
Planning rules should be abolished Architect Karl Sharro writes in the Times that with the provision of new homes at historically low levels, we must sweep aside all planning rules and let people build what they want. He explains that the planning system continues to artificially restrict the supply of land available for development, while also making the process of obtaining a planning permission lengthy, complicated and costly. He says the planning system was created for a different era, initially its aim was for the construction of new towns and homes. However, today planning is more concerned with controlling development ...
There needs to be an investigation into why nearly 20,000 patients in Wales have been discharged in the middle of the night. Research by the Welsh Liberal Democrats, via the Freedom of Information Act, shows that 19,702 patients have been discharged between 11pm and 6am since 2012. The party discovered that not a single Health Board in Wales records the reasons why patients have been discharged. It is also currently not mandatory for Health Boards to track the leaving time of patients and therefore many have admitted that their data is not necessarily 'complete or accurate'. Cardiff and Vale UHB ...
I still, two years after the end of the Beach Boys' reunion tour, get people coming to my blog looking for an answer to this question. I thought it probably worth laying out the facts for those people. The simple answer: he didn't. For the longer answer, read on. At the end of the Beach [...]
Large companies will be legally required to publish the difference between what they pay men and women, under manifesto plans set out by Liberal Democrats today. Liberal Democrats would make it a legal requirement for companies employing more than 250 people to publish the average pay of their male and female workers. This would create pressure from staff and customers to account for and close any pay gap that exists between men and women. The plans were announced by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, Minister for Women and Equalities Jo Swinson and Business Secretary Vince Cable. Currently leading employers are ...
Enjoy...
Today I published the Government's first ever Energy Investment Report. It shows how Liberal Democrats in Government have delivered on jobs and investment in energy - particularly green energy - and shows the plan we now have for this to continue for decades to come. Let me be clear - investment in the energy sector has not been a 'nice to have'. We inherited a legacy of energy underinvestment from Labour and we've spent the last four years turning this around. The sheer scale of the investment has already been huge: between 2010 and 2013 we've secured £45 billion of ...
Today's newspapers say the police are investigating reports that the late Viscount Tonypandy - George Thomas, the Commons Speaker - raped a nine-year-old boy. According to the Mirror: His alleged victim, now aged 55, said: "I was raped by George Thomas in Cardiff. I was about nine. "He spent a lot of time at my house as my parents were good friends with him. Things started small but then got a lot worse. It has been with me all my life." ...The alleged victim, now living in Australia, said his foster parents were Labour Party supporters. He added: "We went ...
