Crowds of spectators wandering around the depot, and not a high-visibility jacket in sight.
What is that thump on the doormat? It is the conference issue of Liberator, complete with some fitting to Simon Titley. Which means it is time to begin another week at Bonkers Hall. You have been warned. Monday I am delighted to read that the Welsh Liberal Democrats are proposing to abolish the trolls on the Severn Bridge. For many years I have been urging just this move upon them, but without any joy. "The time is not right," said Mike German. "There are other priorities," said Kirsty Williams. "Wibble, wibble: are both those feet mine?" said Lembit Opik. It ...
A Guardian report from earlier this report explains: David Cameron's new minister for civil society has been branded patronising and dismissive after he told charities to "stick to their knitting" and keep out of politics. Brooks Newmark, who was appointed in the summer reshuffle, made the comments amid worries among charities that the new Lobbying Act that will limit their ability to campaign on issues of the day. In his first major speech since he took on the role, Newmark used the opportunity to criticise charities who "stray" out of their remit of helping people. Asked about the ability of ...
Newmark was reckless: Reckless is a no mark.
Well, that's not a good start to their Conference for the Conservatives. Their MP for Rochester and Strood Mark Reckless lived up to his name and defected to UKIP, leaving the Tories another £100,000 out of pocket as they defend the second by-election to arise in these circumstances. Then their Civil Society Minister Brooks Newmark resigned when it emerged that he'd sent a fairly lewd photo to a male Mirror journalist who had been posing as a female activist. When I first saw the details, I tweeted that I wondered what went on in the heads of these public figures ...
Before today, even if you happened to live in Braintree, the chances are you hadn't paid much attention to the career of the Minister for Civic Society, Brooks Newmark. But now we all know his name. It appears that a journalist has ensnared him to show a picture of him in his Paisley pyjamas which revealed rather more than most people should reveal in a clothed picture but a great deal less than some of the pictures recently leaked from iCloud. The fact is that the married, father of five, who is MP for Braintree has resigned from his Government ...
I have never heard of Mr Walsh - perhaps he is popular with the young people? - but he has helped the Mirror win our Headline of the Day Award. Not only that: he has reminded me of the acquittal of Jeremy Thorpe at the Old Bailey. The evidence in the case suggested that the supposed hitman, Andrew Newton, had looked for Norman Scott in Dunstable rather than Barnstaple. And failed to find him.
I plan to spend today and tomorrow rewriting the backlog of stuff I lost in the burglary, and get back to a regular posting schedule again tomorrow. My plan is today to rewrite the CalDreaming piece on Good Vibrations and the synopsis for my next novel, tomorrow to rewrite the Cerebus Church And State volumes [...]
Councillors' expenses are about to be published so I thought I would give you a preview of what I have cost you since 6 May 2013, when elected and 31 March 2014, the end of the financial year. Basic Allowance £11,031.33 (like a salary), Special Responsibility Allowance £428.08 (for the extra work in being vice chair of Cornwall's Pensions Committee) Travel Allowances £1,523.10 (includes a little extra for taking other Councillors to and from meetings) I have not claimed anything for overnight accommodation, food or refreshments or to cover caring responsibilities (my husband covers without payment). I worked before becoming ...
[IMG: highlands tm] That got your attention, didn't it? The Liberal Democrats nearly walked out of the coalition this week. That would be the Coalition that runs Highland Council, where we are currently have 13 Councillors and share power in a rainbow coalition with 31 SNP and 8 Labour members. This week, there was a possibility for a while that we would walk away from that Coalition and form a new one with the independents, with whom we had been in power before the previous council election. Liberal Democrat Group Leader David Alston explained to the Inverness Courier what it ...
It's now over a week since Scotland voted No - a verdict which raises far more questions about Scotland's future than it answers. I've been trying to make sense of the confusing web of information and misinformation that has been communicated within the media and by the representatives of political parties. What is apparent is that there is no broad consensus among the Westminster parties, no acceptance of the "devo max" being proclaimed as an inevitability by many sections of the media, no long-term view and no real idea of how to deal with the "English question". In fact, the ...
[IMG: england-flag] English votes for English Laws has become the great rallying cry of the last week ever since David Cameron decided it was appropriate to use the exact moment that almost half of the 85% of Scots who voted in the referendum said they wanted to leave the UK to pick a fight with Ed Miliband over what has been traditionally called the West Lothian Question. Sam Ghibaldan was Special Adviser to two Liberal Democrat Deputy First Ministers in Scotland and he has some advice for Ed in an article in today's Scotsman. He urges him to stop prevaricating ...
Sat 27th
13:55
Phew: turns out there's a medical explanation as to why I sometimes imagine my phone vibrating when ...
[IMG: Smartphone] Wired reports: It happens to me maybe once or twice a month. Just the other morning I was in the elevator with my bike, riding up to our third-floor office. I felt a vibration in my pocket and reached for my phone. It wasn't there. It was in my messenger bag, I quickly remembered as I tried to act casual. I'm not alone in this experience. A handful of studies in recent years have examined the prevalence of phantom cellphone vibrations, and they've come up with impressive numbers... Healthy people don't often hallucinate. But lots of healthy people ...
[IMG: Genghis Khan. Photo courtesy of - some rights reserved] Although published now nearly a century ago – in 1927 – Harold Lamb's highly successful biography Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men is still well worth a read. [IMG: Genghis Khan - Harold Lamb] Written in a style typical of history books of the period – strong on narrative accounts, weak on sourcing of evidence and heavily concentrating on individuals and military events rather than longer-term social and economic trends – it provides a lively and, by current standards, still reasonably accurate account of Genghis Khan's rise and dominance ...
Writing in 2009, the old brute said: I seem to recall that one of them married Hitler; they were an absolute scream
Sat 27th
10:35
Opinion: Why the Lib Dem membership should strongly oppose the UK's new Iraq-Syria 'bombing war'
[IMG: iraq] Beheadings, women buried alive, executions for being in the wrong tribe ? This is not the democratic peaceful Iraq promised in 2003. But just 3 years after the US withdrawal, they went back again in early August with a bombing campaign, and now the UK is joining them. The Prime Minister's intent to bomb Syria as well as Iraq is the subject of apparent disagreement between the Foreign Office and Downing St. The flaky legal justification is that Syria is unable to prevent fighters from crossing the (unmarked) desert border into Iraq. However, since the US has declared ...
Tenant and Leaseholder Day – 27 Sep 2014 12:00 - 4.00 pm Event for all council tenants and leaseholders. A fun day and a chance to get the latest information on the housing service. www.dacorum.gov.uk/housing South Hill Centre, Cemetery Hill, Hemel Hempstead HP1 1JF If you need help with transport, please contact the Tenant Involvement team. tenantinvolvement@dacorum.gov.uk Kaz Hawkins – 27 Sep 2014 8:00 pm Known as "A Vocal Force" on stage, Kaz envelops the fighting spirit of a true powerhouse singer, while loved for her down to earth attitude. Kaz has lived and sings "The Blues" but has much ...
Sin taxes increase inequality and disproportionately harm the poor (tags: ) CEO quits after daughter lists 'missed events' Nice for them as have the option, really. (tags: ) On the bad advice meted out to bisexual people and bi-erasure in general. (tags: ) Dave Lee Travis's 3-month suspended sentence actually reasonably harsh for what he was convicted of (tags: ) A man quit his job to be a father and the world rejoices!!! If there's one thing the Torygraph excel at, it's a good rant. This just happens to be one I agree with (tags: ) No One Listened to ...
Very ingenious – putting fake houses and roads on the roof of the big Boeing factory in Seattle so that it was not visible from the air: [IMG: Boeing factory in Seattle camouflaged during the Second World War] [IMG: Boeing factory in Seattle camouflaged during the Second World War] (Photos taken at the brilliant Seattle Museum of History and Industry.)
It's party conference season, and one of the common stories of that period always used to be of the party leadership (and it didn't matter which party) facing down the activists in their party. The 'activists', we would be informed, would want a policy way out of the mainstream while the leadership was being sensible and moderate. The reason I don't specify a party there is because it's a common story based on a common assumption: that the activists within a party are much more radical than the party leadership, and if the party wants to be successful (and appeal ...
Iain McKenzie MP: an unlikely rebel The Labour MP for Inverclyde, Iain McKenzie, has - according to reports on the ITV and BBC websites - been relieved of his duties as parliamentary aide to shadow defence secretary Vernon Coaker. The justification for his removal from his former post appears to be his decision to vote against military intervention in Iraq. Mr McKenzie so far has maintained a silence on the matter, but what is clear is that he is no natural "rebel" and that he voted according to his conscience. The decision to sack him says more about the Labour ...
[IMG: Josh Mason Redcar] Redcar Liberal Democrats have selected their local party Chair and Deputy Leader of their council group Josh Mason to fight the seat at the General Election. Current Liberal Democrat MP Ian Swales announced in July that he was standing down. From Ian Swales' website: Local man Josh, who is chair of the party, has worked very closely with Ian for the past 4 years supporting his campaigns for jobs, on flooding, against intrusive wind turbines, saving post offices and for better use of Redcar Hospital. Josh also sits on the board of Coast and Country Housing, ...
Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind farm – located five miles from Crosby beach – has been given the green light by the Department for Energy and Climate Change. See the Liverpool Echo story via the link above. Here's a shot I took (click on it to enlarge) with the turbines in the background as they were in March 2009:- [IMG: rsz_crosby_beach_3] Out at sea these massive turbines can look quite majestic. Certainly a better place for them than Lower Alt Wind Farm between Lydiate and Ince Blundell! The photo is on my Flickr site at:-
For those who have seen the film Pride, here is a documentary of the events that led to it being made. It is the story of how Lesbians and Gays created their own support group for the miners and formed an unlikely bond with a South Wales mining community. As the blurb oin YouTube says: 'The South Wales miners' strike of 1984-1985 saw the formation of a curious alliance between a plucky group of young homosexuals from London and miners in Dulais Valley. In Dancing in Dulais, an initial wariness on the part of the young gays, the miners, and ...
