#456631330 / gettyimages.com Speaking to a CentreForum and Prison Reform Trust event today Simon Hughes said: The sad reality is that the political consensus needed for real reform remains the victim of an arms race between the two largest parties on who can sound toughest on law and order. Michael Howard's 1993 declaration that 'prison works', contrary to all the evidence in so many cases of course, became an ideology which was then enthusiastically embraced by Labour Home and Justice Secretaries including Jack Straw, David Blunkett and John Reid. That misguided consensus has been directly responsible for a near doubling ...
[IMG: Affordable housing concept.] The JRF report What will the housing market look like in 2040?, released yesterday, provided an eye-catching and headline-grabbing answer to the question that acts as its title. Presumably grabbing the headlines was the point. The answer is that under plausible assumptions about future trajectories on tenure, costs and incomes we are looking at a future of higher housing costs, more private renting, and a substantially increased incidence of poverty. The authors, from Heriot Watt and Sheffield Universities, forecast that private renting will accommodate 20% of the population by 2040 and half of them will be ...
Here's a thing. I didn't see The Agenda last night. Why? Because, if Question Time makes me angry, I'm only going to be angrier with the version that is terribly chaired, never really politically balanced and that looks like it's filmed in a nightclub that closed down in 2002. There, I said it. Similarly, other than a brief bit of reading this morning, I'm not going to even start questioning Myleene Klass's treatment of Ed Miliband over the Mansion Tax. What I am going to talk about is the online reaction to Myleene's appearance, because something interesting is happening. Many ...
Yesterday evening I met Sir Craig Tunstall, executive head of the highly regarded Gipsy Hill Federation, to discuss his plans for a new secondary school in the area. The plans for a secondary school follow overwhelming support from over 2,000 local parents at the federation's primary schools, who want their children to continue their education within the Gipsy Hill Federation. It already is oversubscribed by 130% and all going well will open 2016. For the last five years my number one priority has been ensuring local families have a great school for their child. This has meant initiating and leading ...
Gareth Epps celebrates victory over the pubcos: "Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined it possible to win this vote against a Government whip, although reports that half the 56 Liberal Democrat MPs voted for a Fair Deal are equally wonderful." Yvette Cooper's speech on immigration means that left and right have reached an illiberal consensus, says Nick Tyrone. Tim Wigmore, on the New Statesman's The Staggers blog, asks what the point of police and crime commissioners is. British politics is becoming more European, but that may not be a good thing, argues Ian Traynor in the Observer. ...
MP for Redcar, Ian Swales is urging local people to get involved with the consultation to decide the future of Redcar's Crown Post Office. Proposals put forward by the Post Office recommend relocation into WHSmith on Redcar High Street. Alongside the six week consultation, a public meeting will take place on Wednesday 3rd December from 4-8pm at TunedIn, Majuba Road, Redcar. At the event, representatives from the Post Office will be available to discuss the proposals and the consultation process. Only about a third of the current building on Cleveland Street is occupied, forcing the Post Office to look for ...
Adding a picture to a post on social media such as twitter or facebook will increase the number of people who view it. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly facebook's algorithms prioritize posts with pictures, so they will be more likely to appear in timelines, secondly our eyes are drawn to interesting [...]
Tue 18th
19:15
Despair as youth budget for Ludlow cut hard while Shropshire Council stacks up the overheads
A guest post by Tracey Huffer, chair of Ludlow Youth Partnership and Shropshire Councillor for Ludlow East. I despair. Expertise, experience and effectiveness matter nothing to a council only concerned with costs. I appreciate that Shropshire Council has to overhaul its youth provision in a time of cuts. But the new budget is only a [...]
[IMG: Transgender pride flag] This week, as well as being Anti-Bullying Week, is Transgender Awareness Week. Thursday marks the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, a memorial to all those transgender people who have been injured and killed as a result of hate crime. Tomorrow, the Welsh Liberal Democrats are holding a debate in the Welsh Assembly that aims to make life better for Wales' 31,300 transgender citizen. The idea is to persuade the Welsh Government to actually put some walk to the talk. For those 31,300 people, there is no Gender Clinic in Wales. While violence against transgender people is ...
Healthwatch, the consumer group concentrating on health and social care, has been consulting patients and the public about their experiences at Southmead Hospital - their report is available here. North Bristol NHS Trust has responded in fairly general terms - for example, they say "Parking is an area of continuous improvement for us whilst waiting for the completion of the phase 2 development in spring 2016" The report concentrates on matters within the hospital, so it doesn't really touch on issues such as bus services. Please let Pat Hockey pat.hockey@southglos.gov.uk know about any excessive delays or missing services on the ...
[IMG: aljazeera] That's the headline of a piece I was interviewed for, published by Al Jazeera today. Here's what I had to say: Few political issues have stirred the 21st century British state like immigration. As the country continues to wrestle with its place within the European Union, the influx of EU migrants to UK shores has become one of the most controversial – and thorny – topics of discussion in recent years. ... "I don't think the debate is a healthy one at the moment," Stephen Tall, editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, the leading independent website for British Liberal ...
Lib Dem Justice Minister Simon Hughes will re-open the coalition row about drug laws today in a thinktank speech he is making on prison reform. Hughes to attack Tory coalition colleagues over failure of prison reform Labour approach also criticised Home Officer Minister Lynne Featherstone has reiterated need to focus on dealers Simon Hughes, the [...]
Yvette Cooper gave a speech on immigration today. It was one of the most disheartening things I've encountered this parliament, and that's amazing given, as Nick Clegg once so beautifully put, it's a shitty time to be a liberal. I'll summarise as best I can: according to Yvette, there is a group of "liberal commentators" who don't like talking about immigration. I have no idea what she's talking about as it is all anyone seems to discuss these days. If you had been in a containment cell for the last ten years and walked out into a British street and ...
Tue 18th
17:46
Lydiate – Residents say dairy wagons are responsible for churned up grass verge – Kenyon...
What a mess, this grass verge is in Lydiate's Kenyon's Lane. [IMG: rsz_kenyons_lane_3] Residents tell me that the problem is caused by the size of the lorries accessing the dairy opposite their homes. It seems that due to the entrance to the dairy being too narrow for large lorries to be able to turn in straight off the carriageway they are mounting the grass verge to try to widen their turning circle. Trouble is the consequences for the verge are dire indeed. Having spoken to some of the residents living opposite the dairy I have asked Sefton Council's Highways Dept. ...
My recent posting refers:- A Sefton Council Highways Inspector visited the location on the 13.11.14 and identified 3 blocked road gullies and I am told that an instruction has been issued to the Council's contractor to attend to them. The next heavy rain fall will certainly let us know if the work has been a success!
[IMG: The Casked Crusader] Greg Mulholland and MPs from all parties should be toasted (in the drinks sense not the fork over the fire sense) in every pub in England tonight. Greg's amendment to the Small Business Bill, giving pub landlords in tied houses the right to a fair rent, squeaked through the House of Commons by a margin of just 15 votes. 28 Liberal Democrats and 15 Tories defied the Government whips to pass the measure, overturning the Government's usual majority of about 60. It's a good, transformative liberal measure which takes power from large companies and gives it ...
Targets came from Jeremy Bentham, in a labyrinthine journey via Robert Macnamara and Key Performance Indicators. They purport to provide transparency and accountability, and - in some ways, in the absence of anything else - they do. The difficulty is that they never quite measure what they claim. They are indicators of the thing - success - and not the thing itself. And in that gap, so many difficulties follow. I write all this because of a blistering attack by the influential NHS blogger Roy Lilley this morning about the effects of too close attention to targets is having on ...
By 284 votes to 269 the House of Commons has voted to insert the Market Rent Option into the Small Business Bill, creating a truly Fair Deal for your Local. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined it possible to win this vote against a Government whip, although reports that half the 56 Liberal Democrat MPs voted for a Fair Deal are equally wonderful. There are a huge number of people to thank right now. Far too many to mention. This is the most wonderful campaign, supported by a coalition of organisations but run entirely by volunteers. As ...
[IMG: Potatoes] @MPSBatterseaSgt out of curiosity is it just "guns" or all firearms? As uk law defines firearms as many things. — sonny (@SonnyGrant45) November 15, 2014
So, Danny Alexander has been having lunch with some journalists today. The conversation, according to Kevin Maguire, was mature and relevant, discussing the important issues of the day. Danny Alexander looked sheepish when Telegraph's Chris Hope claimed a @SkyNews tape shows him breaking wind, unaware the camera was filming — Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) November 18, 2014 You would have to be really sad to type "Danny Alexander fart" into Google, wouldn't you? Chris Hope was referring to a story initially broken by Michael White of the Guardian the day after the AV referendum in 2011. "Not much tension but plenty ...
The political world rarely rewards actual achievement. Instead it tends to reward those who claim achievement, whether or not they have a right to that claim or not. Hard graft often seems to count for less than effective spin. However it is worth noting that the Liberal Democrats in government have a very real heavy weight. A Cabinet Minister who has pushed through a radical agenda, despite major opposition from the Conservatives- especially the now former Cabinet Minister, Owen Patterson. A Cabinet Minister who has the respect of his international peers, and who has rightly persuaded some of our partners, ...
Free seminar Offers & promotions that win customers! In celebration of Small Business Saturday When: Friday 21st November, from 8:00 to 11:00 AM Where: Holiday Inn Gibson Road Sutton SM1 2RF Add to Calendar You want to take a step forward and grow your business in 2015. You also know that you should be using [...]
Those of us preoccupied by representations regarding the prevalence of electronic cigarettes will be heartened (or maybe not) by the conclusion of the Oxford English Dictionary that the word of the year is 'Vape'. Apparently, use of the word, defined as to "inhale and exhale the vapour produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device", has more than doubled over the course of the year to win. The Independent says that the shortlist, which included contenders such as bae, slacktivism and indyref, is compiled by scanning around 150 million words of English in use every month. They have specialist software ...
Tue 18th
13:57
Transgender Awareness Week: Welsh Lib Dems to lead landmark debate on transgender issues
The Welsh Liberal Democrats are marking Transgender Awareness Week on Wednesday by leading a landmark Welsh Assembly debate on issues faced by Welsh trans people. It is thought to be the first time this topic has been discussed in-depth by the National Assembly for Wales. It is estimated there are over 31,300 trans people in Wales, yet there are significant problems relating to adequate healthcare and housing provision. Welsh Lib Dem Assembly Members will be raising these issues, in addition to the perception of trans people in Wales and what can be done to further raise awareness of gender equality ...
Every few years the Council commissions a report into the state of Stockport Town Centre and our district centres. It feeds into the Council's planning policy – is land being correctly allocated for different purposes around the borough. There's lots about Stockport Town Centre in the report – despite its issues it's still the fourth largest centre in Greater Manchester after Manchester Central, Trafford Centre and Bolton. The latest report has just come out and it has some interesting research about Cheadle. Cheadle is the third largest district centre in Stockport on money spent. The only places above it (Hazel ...
It's not every day that you wake up and find that you've been quoted in the Daily Fail. The story starts late last night when Ed Miliband got into an argument with Myleene Klass over the Mansion Tax. You can see here on ITV Player how he got his backside handed to him on a plate as Myleene took him to task over his policy. Well, actually, it's our policy. He nicked it. Maybe if he'd had his own policies, he might have been better at defending them. Myleene was absolutely and utterly in the wrong as far as I'm ...
A nifty trick taught to me by Newcastle University's Street Science team:
Liverpool's elected Mayor Joe Anderson says he wants to be Mayor for the whole of Liverpool City Region. Its time we said 'NO' to him and indeed anyone else who wants to run the affairs of communities outside of Liverpool from Liverpool. [IMG: Cllr_Joe_Anderson,_Leader,_Liverpool_City_Council.jpeg] No good will come from places like Prescot, Southport, Lydiate, Wallasey, St Helens, Maghull, Birkenhead or any other of the numerous communities that make up the Liverpool City Region being run from Liverpool Town Hall. Neither will any good come from putting power into the hands of just one person to Lord it over so many ...
Rail users can still suggest questions for St Albans City and District Council's Local Services Scrutiny Committee to raise at its next meeting about Thameslink. They can also attend the meeting on 4 December to hear the Committee question managers from Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) and Network Rail on the service's performance. Earlier this month rail users were invited to send in [...]
Angus Liberal Democrats have reselected me to be their candidate for next year's General Election. I have campaigned on behalf of Angus residents for many years and as candidate at the 2010 General Election and again at the 2011 Scottish Elections. It is a real honour to be selected to represent the Angus Lib Dems again and I would like to thank the members for their continued support. [IMG: Angus & Mearns Select Sanjay Samani as their General Election candidate] There has been a clear message from voters in every election since 2010. We are all fed up with the ...
Tue 18th
11:56
Simon Hughes MP writes... We need to take Bill Gates' advice on aid and fight against Malaria
Last Monday evening I was privileged to attend a Bill Gates lecture in the House of Lords. Bill Gates made a compelling case for the use of aid to make a real and tangible difference to the world's poorest people. Rightly, the UK has a long and proud tradition of doing this, but we can do so much more. There is no better case study for this than Malaria - one of the world's oldest and deadliest diseases and which kills a child every minute of every day. That's despite the fact that the cause is preventable and costs less ...
#477581077 / gettyimages.com Usually when I return to something I've written a while later, I can produce a list nearly as long as the original writing of things I'd like to change – wording to improve, facts to add, insights to tweak, better examples to use and metadata to revise. So far, however, and doubtless due to my co-author Ed Maxfield, the contents of 101 Ways To An Election have aged pretty well since the book came out and pushed past Peter Mandelson on the sales charts. Only the typo in the contents page makes me wince and though I've ...
This year the G8* grants scheme is aimed solely at smaller local parties and groups of campaigners to help get their campaign up and running or to help it grow. G8 is also being used to subsidise postal voter recruitment mailings (more details shortly) and attendance at the Kickstart residential training weekends, both of which [...]
The Council looks set to approve the plans for a skatepark at Dingle Bank in Garston. The decision has not been published yet but the report at this link is recommending approval without any planning committee discussion. (You need to look at the case officer report) The National Trust is applying to make some changes to the opening hours at 20 Forthlin Road. The full details aren't published yet, which means the comments function isn't enabled, but the info will be at this link (scroll down and click on Related Documents for the bulk of the info) Comments are now ...
I am, officially, fifty (and five days). That, apparently, is the bad news, although I can't help feeling that I'm still a long way away from a pipe and slippers (the fact that I don't smoke is probably a factor, and as for slippers... why?). Luckily, my health is generally good, although it would be nice to shift the persistent, hacking cough that has bedevilled me for the past two or three months, and emotionally I feel as though I'm in my mid-thirties. It is only life that keeps reminding me that this might not actually be the case. Surveys ...
Ballot papers are already with party members and many of you may already have voted, but for those still making up their minds, we present here the STEM Hustings for election of the Liberal Democrat Party President. Aldes are determined to ensure that the Liberal Democrats remain a party where individuals working in the fields of science, technology, engineering and medicine are heard and supported. With this goal in mind, we asked the three candidates for party president to answer the following three questions: How do you see science and engineering contributing to a stronger economy and fairer society? What ...
I know that in the run-up to an election, not every story that newspapers print, especially those newspapers which are hostile to us which is, let's face it, all of them, is grounded in accuracy. You would think that we would help ourselves, though. Who on earth has said in the hearing of the Telegraph that the party fears that Danny Alexander will lose his Inverness seat? Danny Alexander will lose his seat at the next general election unless there is a radical turnaround in fortunes, a senior Liberal Democrat strategist has privately warned. The source believes the Chief Secretary ...
[IMG: Lord's] It had been a torpid morning's play. Lancashire spent it very slowly hammering Middlesex into dust, the score at the lunch break seeing the northern county move into a seemingly unassailable four hundred and sixty-one run lead with six wickets in hand. William helped his father out of the seat he'd been sat in during the morning's play; it was four along from the one William had chosen to sit in. Partly as a result of this, the two men had not exchanged a word during the entire session, which suited both parties just fine. As the father ...
Labour's Ed Miliband is under fire. This is not surprising, given his miserabilist message and the incompetence with which the party has handled Scottish politics. But not all criticism of Mr Miliband is fair. He has held firm on core liberal policy areas, such as Europe, immigration and human rights. Given that the Conservatives are abandoning liberal values in their pursuit of Ukip voters, shouldn't liberals reward this grit under pressure, and vote for the party that Mr Miliband leads? But that would be as grave a mistake as liberals and greens would have made if they had voted for ...
The great Victorian beard craze (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Dull sign on a dull day. Copyright Dave Fergusson and licensed for reuse: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/108551] You need to give people a reason to click through. That's the absolutely basic rule which applies to all online content where you're hoping someone will click through, whether it's to read more or to take action. But oh my goodness, the candidates for Lib Dem party president have cooked up a remarkable dull set of openers in the email recently sent to party members. The idea is a good one: the party Chief Exec sends an email out to all members, with an opening ...
Today sees the launch of the West End Christmas Fortnight Brochure - with West End Christmas Fortnight starting this coming Saturday! Christmas Fortnight is packed with events and you can download the full brochure here. Here's some highlights : Saturday 22nd November : Christmas Fortnight starts! West End Christmas Fortnight will be launched with a super Children's Lantern Making event at Blackness Library, starting at 10am. At 1pm, there will be a vintage motor cavalcade in the West End shopping areas, in conjunction with Dundee Museum of Transport. Kindly sponsored by Barnetts Motor Group, the cavalcade of vintage vehicles will ...
I have posted before about former Langton Dock Branch (see link below) that closed a long time ago and for which there is little evidence of it existing these days as you get close to the docks. But under Bootle Strand Station there is a tunnel which once took this branch under the Liverpool – Southport Line. The tunnel was tall as the line was in a very deep cutting. Recently I came across an old photo of the tunnel in its original guise, so I went to take a photo of the same location now. The differences are ...
[IMG: YouGov-Profiles-launch] Market research firm YouGov poll a lot of people about a lot of things. As a result they have a data trove which they've turned into a visualisation tool which can profile a typical customer for any given brand... including if that 'brand' is the Lib Dems. Before I get to the fascinating screenshots, and you all shout back "But that's just not true", here's what YouGov says about what the data show: This app does not show the *typical* fan or customer. If it did, most groups would look very similar, and you wouldn't learn a lot ...
