In his speech today at the Labour Party conference Ed Balls told us he wants pay settlements that are affordable and fair. "Private and public sector workers should all share in rising prosperity. So Labour will not undermine fairness and the independent review bodies by rejecting their advice out of hand". Good point well made Ed. Unfortunately I did hear you, a few minutes earlier, talking about ministerial pay rises. If you win the election the pay for every government minister will be cut by 5% and ministerial pay will be frozen each year until they have balanced the nation's ...
It was good to see one head shaking in the audience for Ed Balls' speech at the Labour Party Conference today. Here's the background. Ed wants to see child benefit rising again in line with inflation but he won't spend money that he can't afford. So if Labour get back to power they will cap the rise in child benefit to 1% which will save £400,000,000. Sounds like a lot but that's when I saw the one incredulous female face. You see large figures do sound large but this delegate was thinking that she relies on her child benefit to ...
From episode 57 of The Monkees, which was first broadcast in America in March 1968. The series was a staple of children's television in Britain for a few years after that.
#57210802 / gettyimages.com For those prepared to listen it has always been clear that a Labour government would implement austerity policies too. During the last general election campaign Alistair Darling conceded that if Labour were re-elected it would its public spending cuts will be "tougher and deeper" than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher. And in October 2013 Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and business secretary, vowed to be tougher on benefit claimants than the Tories. Yet through all this Labour activists have clung to the belief that austerity was all down to the personal wickedness of Conservative and Liberal Democrat ...
Saturday: "Listen" certainly seems to have pushed the right buttons for most fans of the show, garnering near universal praise from the online communities: an acting tour de force, an intricate character study, and the rest. So I know I'm in a minority on this one. And there must be some irony there, because "Listen" is a shaggy dog story to which the punchline is "the Emperor has no clothes". "Why has evolution not come up with perfect hiding?" asks the man who lives in a machine that does - or at least is supposed to do - exactly that. ...
Posting this rather late, due to holidays: this month's post from Councillor Sue Carpendale and myself. The "open" Electoral Register We have previously mentioned the change to the way in which we all now register to vote: for many years the "head of the household" was responsible for listing everyone in the house over the age of 18. That has changed and now it is up to each of us as individuals to ensure that we are registered. As part of this change a letter was sent out from Babergh to all registered voters which perhaps contained some rather confusing ...
Today's winner can be found in High Street, Oakham.
The video above is one of several which have pinged off some petitions for a recount of the Scottish referendum result. My view is that such petitions are an excellent opportunity. Here are people (who have signed the petitions) who are engaged in the electoral process and passionate about it. They should be locked in a room for four hours with Dr Mark Pack and Colin Rosenstiel while they explain the count process to them. (Joke) Seriously, this is an excellent opportunity to tell people about the count process. There are many checks and balances. There are many counting agents ...
Welcome news in the Shropshire Star today: the Office of Rail Regulation has given its approval for a direct rail link service between Shrewsbury and London. There will be two workings each way from Monday to Saturday, and one on Sunday. The good news for me is that the service will call at Coventry. When I first started going to Shropshire I used sometimes to catch a train from Leicester to Coventry and pick up the Shrewsbury service there. These days getting from Leicester to Coventry involves a change of trains at Nuneaton, but it will still be well worth ...
Mon 22nd
18:44
Are our newspapers trying to persuade us to trust the politicians and give up our rights?
[IMG: big_brother_is_watching_you_by_tea_bladez] THE MONSTERING OF HUMAN RIGHTS Adam Wagner, 19 September 2014 Adam Wagner is a barrister specializing in human rights and public law. He is the founding editor of the acclaimed UK Human Rights Blog and regularly writes for The New Statesman, The Guardian and The Times on public law and human rights issues. The following article by Adam is an excellent analysis of the threat to human rights in this country and I have no hesitation in publishing it in it's entirety. Introduction Monster / verb trans Make a monster of ... Depict as monstrous; defame, disparage Born ...
Tony Blair is asking us to listen to his advice on fighting in Iraq because he has been there before. Does anyone recall if we ever found those WMD's ready to fly within 45 minutes? So what did you learn from Blair's foray into Iraq?
View Poll: Yoghurt [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The report below on Sefton's Job Seekers Allowance Claimant count for August may well be of interest. Whilst stats can be useful (and easily misused) they do seem to show a developing positive picture for the Borough. Some of the references throughout the report are to Borough Council wards i.e. Birkdale, Linacre etc. ***** There has been continued positive movement in the Sefton's claimant count this month (August). The youth claimant rate is at its lowest recorded level and Sefton continues to close the gap with the UK. The current claimant rate in Sefton is now 2.7%. There are now ...
"Is not very nice really" is my conclusion after coming home from my third trip there last week. So much of what you see there fails to excite starting from the moment you try and leave JFK airport. You would ... Continue reading →
[IMG: london by Harshil Shah] London is widely regarded as a liberal city. It is not, however, a Liberal Democrat city. The party now controls just one council and has only 6% of the councillors, as well as 2 London Assembly members. And yet, at least anecdotally, London should be our city. It's diverse and often cosmopolitan. One of the most striking aspects of the 2014 British Social Attitudes survey was that over half of Londoners welcomed immigration as good for the economy – almost double the number of people who did so in the rest of the UK. In ...
[IMG: Ice-bucket-prank-615x345] The classmates of a 15 year old teenager with autism tricked him into participating in an ice bucket challenge in order to raise money for charity. Instead of the bucket being filled with ice cubes it was filled with human waste and cigarette butts.The poor boy's mother found the video on his Smartphone. The cruel teenagers who pulled the evil prank had used the boy's phone to video it. Thankfully, police are questioning the culprits. My take on this is that those who did this to a vulnerable teenager need to be publicly named and shamed. What on ...
[IMG: Alliance] Politics is macho at the best of times - strength and power, even clarity is used in a ruthless context. All too often there are militaristic metaphors: "I intend to march my troops towards the sound of gunfire" (Joe Grimond 1963). Indeed, it has always been my experience as a campaigner, member of staff for the Party and as candidate, that macho effort is often valued above more subtle contribution. You often hear Conference bar boasting about the number of by-elections attended (usually citing the first exciting one that we won, forgetting the less sexy ones: Ogmore or ...
It's a funny thing but I found myself suddenly emotional about the Scotland vote on Friday. Having been far less convinced about the future of the union as maybe I should have been - what does nationhood mean in practice these days? - I happened to be on the phone to an office selling sheds in Edinburgh after the result come in. I felt an overwhelming urge to say to the friendly Scottish voice at the other end how glad I was that we were still in the same country. I managed to restrain myself - perhaps I shouldn't have ...
Prime Minister David Cameron today held a lunch at his official residence Chequers to discuss a Conservative Party reaction to the vote in Scotland to remain part of the UK. Devolution was top of the agenda but it seems that Cornwall was not mentioned. In the last few days of the Scottish referendum campaign, the three main party leaders made a pledge about delivering further powers to the Scottish Parliament. Now the parties need to live up to their promises. But many backbench Tory MPs are concerned that they did not agree to the pledge and want action to address ...
Being very much a politics geek, the renewed discussion on English Devolution following the pledge of home rule for Scotland by all three major party leaders, prompted me to start considering what England might look like if the same powers were devolved to it. Two well known options for English devolution are those of either a devolved English Parliament or devolved regional assemblies for the regions used in European elections. To my mind the former (as a result of covering 53 million people) would continue over-centralisation in England while the latter is hindered by the regions lacking cohesive identities and ...
There does seem to be some interest in the question of devolution for England. I am, therefore, trying to find out if there is sufficient demand to run an e-Conference or Q&A session on the issues for Constituents (and if there is space in terms of time for anyone else from Birmingham. If you are interested in this please email tom.lister@john.hemming.name You would need a Skype video account
[IMG: Yorkshire Rose] The prospect of more devolution to Scotland has, rightly enough, ignited the debate in England over devolution. The country has been alive with this, and the party seems to me at times a microcosm of this with some pulling in the direction of English Votes on English Laws and others in the direction of a constitutional convention and devolution to the regions of England. Nick Clegg speaking earlier reasserted the idea that groups of local authorities should have the right to demand powers are devolved to them, while nodding at the McKay commission on English and England-and-Wales ...
-Follow and keep in touch!The Foreign Secretary has joined Twitter, a platform which was used quite effectively by his predecessor, William Hague. His first week was as on message and businesslike as you would expect from Hammond. Pleased to join Twitter and proud to represent the United Kingdom at the United Nations today. #UNGA69 #UNGA [...]
[IMG: The Liberal Democrat constitution] In the last edition of Liberal Democrat Newswire I reported on the quiet change made by the Federal Executive (FE) to the rules for election to the party's federal committees, introducing a new requirement that at least half of the elected posts must be filled by women. The change has been introduced in a very low-key way, with the only official communication from the party so far being a reference on page 22 of the 'Reports to Conference' booklet, and despite nominations having already opened for the contest on 15 September. However, the bigger procedural ...
Lets face it politicians are not always self seeking rascals, but a surprising number are. My last posting was prompted by the rather disturbing news that Alex Salmond and his fellow fantasists had managed to convince enough Scots, that their community would rapidly be converted into paradise should they vote Yes to independence and ignoring the resulting in the destruction of the United Kingdom. At the time I myself was in something approaching paradise, well a very comfy hotel in St Lucia, but news that Britain could disappear was deeply disturbing hence I set aside an hour for my previous ...
Libertarian 'Utopia' Styled After Ayn Rand Book Spectacularly Falls Apart Almost Immediately – Almost too good to be true, but it turns out that libertarians are really easy to con with utopian scams. The real Olive Garden scandal: Why greedy hedge funders suddenly care so much about breadsticks – Humorous internet presentation appears to have been a ploy by asset-strippers. Yah all right? – The plural of anecdote is not data, but was there really that much of a ground campaign from either side in the Scottish referendum. Independence, devolution and power – Alex Marsh's good summary of the post-referendum ...
[IMG: Raign] There are many things I don't like about the X Factor, but amongst them is what its presence has come to definitively signify: the official end of summer. In association with the appearance of the karaoke related television programme in homes across Britain, is the tiresome discussion around the "Battle for the Xmas Number 1" that happens at the same time. This push to top the charts come Santa's big day is a very bizarre ritual that seems to endure, in spite of the fact there aren't really charts anymore so I don't see why having a number ...
Mon 22nd
12:33
Opinion: Lib Dems believe in local policing; should they also support a return to local courts?
[IMG: Birmingham Magistrates' Courts / Victoria Law Courts] Over the past two decades summary justice has been transformed in England and Wales. Part of the change has been a loss of local visibility for the justice system. The police and Crown Prosecution Service has acquired new authority to sentence those admitting to crimes through use of Conditional Cautions and the expansion of fixed penalty and exclusion notices. In this they have been aided by new powers gained by local authorities. On the other hand, local magistrates' courts have disappeared from many towns and the suburbs of our cities, creating newer ...
[IMG: Norman Lamb] Back for its sixth year is my autumn conference MP fringe league table along with the annual award of the Simon Hughes Memorial Prize for the most simultaneous fringe meeting bookings by an MP at party conference. As ever, this is based on the information from the official listings and I have included MPs marked as "tbc" and "invited" but excluded those who are not listed even if I know otherwise (as my extra information is only partial). The Rally and Ministerial Q+As are excluded. Winning this time with a record high score of 19 is Norman ...
[IMG: Scottish referendum ohot by gerardferryimages] While I was a governor at a primary school, we had a yearly dilemma. By law, we had to hold an annual meeting with parents. About a dozen usually turned up. Normally the same faces. Interested and engaged, they gave us good feedback and a nice time was had by all. Soft drinks and nibbles supplied. But a dozen parents for a school with several hundred pupils was considered low. So, annually, we considered ways of increasing parental attendance, only to be frustrated. After several attempts, I jokingly suggested that the only way to ...
Mon 22nd
10:49
No, Alex, I wasn't tricked. I voted No because I wasn't convinced by you and your plans
Hi Alex You've been putting it about that those of us who voted No in last week's referendum have been tricked by the vow from the three pro-UK parties. That's a bit of a presumption, to be honest. It assumes, ... Continue reading →
If you posed the question as to a fall in standards in the secret service in Britain you would be told that it was a secret. Fortunately for news editors with papers to fill, America is a bit more open. Thus today's Independent reports on a growing scandal amongst the elite officers who are charged with protecting the President of the USA. Apparently, many are being distracted from doing the job they are paid for. The paper says that late last Friday a man jumped the fence separating the executive mansion from Pennsylvania Avenue, dashed unimpeded across the lawn to ...
The Boxtrolls is transmisogynist :( (tags: ) Rugby is a game for thugs, played by gentlemen; football is a game for gentlemen, played by thugs. (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: The Liberal Democrats need to win the political argument over what the Tories have been stopped from doing.] The Liberal Democrats need to win the political argument over what the Tories have been stopped from doing. There's often a debate within political parties as to how much to talk about the past at election time compared to the future. That debate is often skewed by many active in politics forgetting how little attention most voters pay to politics most of the time – and so how talking 'yet again' about something in the past is still communicating information that ...
Normal politics has been on hold for the last weeks of the Scottish referendum, as nobody from south of the border wanted to rock the boat. But that phoney war is well and truly over, as the party leaders and their followers have pitched in with a free-for-all on the previously little discussed subject of the UK constitution. It is a pretty unedifying spectacle, which demonstrates why politicians in Westminster (and Holyrood for that matter) aren't trusted by the public. But some are behaving much worse than others. First place in my Hall of Shame goes to our Prime Minister, ...
[IMG: Yorkshire ] I wrote an opinion piece for LibDem Voice on 26th August arguing for devolution for the regions. My piece elicited a mixed response. The events of the last few days, in my opinion, have made this viewpoint more mainstream and catapulted this issue up the political agenda. We have a once in a lifetime chance to change the way we are governed in this country for the better and repair the damage done by scandal, expenses and the notion that we are governed by a small number of people from the same socio-economic background. We have an ...
After its success last year, Abbotswood Apple Day returns by popular demand. It's a real community event with lots of activities for all ages. Come and join the fun from 11am to 3pm at Abbotswood precinct and St Nicholas Family Centre!
So, we're back to four candidates again with the emergence of Daisy Cooper as a new contender. So, has anything changed? Well, we now don't appear to have a BAME candidate, which is a pity, especially if they had something different to offer other than just diversity - it isn't enough in my mind to be something, you have to be able to offer a perspective, or experience, or a strategic vision that resonates with the needs of the Party, perceived or actual. We now, however, still only have female candidates - not a problem from my perspective, but interesting ...
The Royal Arch in 1935 I have welcomed an assurance that Dundee's former Royal Arch will gain proper recognition as part of the Dundee Waterfront project. Constituents have asked me if there would be proper recognition of the historic arch, that was erected in Dundee between 1849 and 1853 to commemorate a visit to the city by Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, in 1844. It was demolished on 16 March 1964, as part of the land reclamation scheme, and to make way for the construction of the Tay Road Bridge. Many constituents regret the demolition of the Royal ...
A couple of weeks ago I went to a meeting involving Merseyside's P&CC Jane Kennedy. The meeting itself is not what this piece is about but an odd, almost throwaway remark, she made during it struck a chord with me. I can't quote Jane directly but she said words to the effect that 'if the PCC continue to exist'. Clearly she doubts that they will and let's face it there have been a number a scandals involving P&CC's across England – not involving Jane I would add. The Sunday Times recently quoted shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper saying that a ...
When I started the Cerebus posts on Mindless Ones, I hoped to get them finished by the Thought Bubble convention towards the end of November . The problem was, shortly after the fourth post, I got hit by every major life problem you can think of, and while I've been trying to make sure I [...]
