Tom Mangold writes about his attempts to investigate Jeremy Thorpe for the BBC: I had been on the story for less than two weeks when I got a phone call from Jo Grimond, one of Thorpe's predecessors as Liberal leader. 'What you are doing is outrageous!' he barked down the line. 'Unless you stop at once, I'll have you dismissed within hours by the [BBC's] Director General, who I happen to know extremely well.'It's always sad to learn that one of your heroes has feet of clay. Still, this incident does give me an excuse for reposting one of my ...
There is a new application for 14 houses at Lodge Gardens. The entrance will be off Frome Road. Ward: Odd Down App Ref: 14/05228/OUT Parish: N/ARegistered: 13th November 2014Expiry Date: 12th February 2015Location: Land Between 90 And Lodge Gardens Frome Road Odd Down Bath Bath And North East Somerset BA2 2PP Grid Ref: (E)373718 - (N)162297Proposal: Development of 14no. 3 bedroom dwellings
Jonathan Meades wins Opening Sentence of the Day.
"Like so many others who had been stretched and inspired by his English teaching, I wrestled with my practical conscience. It was clearly a gross injustice that he was in custody. Those who spoke to the press - and I seemed to have known nearly all of them - had their words twisted to suit the agenda, almost whatever their intention." David Boyle watches The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies Feeding Britain, this week's report on food poverty, is too keen to blame the victims, argues Rob Parsons. "Reporters Without Borders recommend the use of Tor as part of its ...
The Plymouth Herald wins headline of the Day - and it has a photograph of the elf. Thanks to Polar Pilchard on Twitter.
Pleased to see that the Council has acted upon our request to get rid of the puddle at the dropped kerb Odins Road/Frome Road junction
Several street lights are out, these are the responsibility of Curo. We have reported them, we have had a report of someone falling in the dark.
Sat 13th
17:15
Government Drugs Chaos: The MDA is ineffective, dangerous and a breach of human rights
Blog Categories: Everything Else Vote: -1 vote + Vote up! - Vote down! I suppose it's quite natural that some of the lines of "intellectual enquiry" I've been pursuing myself since graduating are ones that came up in my degree, and especially the last year, when most "in depth" work was done. One of those is something I covered this time last year, in my module on the Political Sociology of Crime and Disorder, where for my (self-chosen) essay "Drug Control, the Harm Principle and Limits to Legitimate State Intervention" I read some work by Rutgers University philosophy of law ...
Two million apprenticeships have been created in the UK since 2010 with 1,790 of these being created in Bath, giving people a vital start in life. Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP, recently visited apprentices at the City of Bath College to see the college's new £200,000 engineering workshop. Don Foster, MP for Bath, who along with Lib Dems PPC, Steve Bradley, accompanied Vince Cable on
[IMG: 1797259-white-lion-617-409.jpg] Some time back, I did an article on the five best songs of the 80's. Off the back of that, I had two common requests come my way. One was for me to do a best 100 songs of the 80's. While that would be fun, I really don't have that kind of time on my hands at present. The other, which is more doable, is to talk about the worst five songs ever. So let's. I'll do it in reverse order, so least bad first, building towards the worst song ever recorded. 5. "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" ...
Caring Cows in Carnyorth are checking up on my dad! [IMG: Caring Cows] Cows looking in on my dad. Would this count as a welfare check? I thought with all the gloom and doom over budget cuts that visitors to my site might appreciate something a little more light hearted, in the run up to Christmas. They do spend a lot of time looking in on my dad. I wonder what they are thinking? The post Caring Cows appeared first on Cllr Sue James | St Just in Penwith | St Just and Pendeen.
In addition to my Blogger blog at www.dundeewestend.scot and my Wordpress blog at www.westendblog.org.uk, the blog is now also on Tumblr - at www.cllrfrasermacpherson.tumblr.com.
Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has always been very lucky not to be considered a major political figure and hence thanks to lack of much media interest to have managed to get away with past escapades such as claiming his website cost peanuts to run despite putting in Parliamentary expense claims for it that were rather more than peanuts, or publishing without permission on his website the private details of a constituent who had written to him to complain. His latest outing into the stranger corners of political behaviour has made it to a short story on the BBC though: the ...
I remember 13th December 1984 with more detail than I should. I went to school, I came home, I did some ironing for some reason that I can't fathom. I found myself singing that horrendous St Winifred's School Choir song ... Continue reading →
It is quite difficult to characterise what the Food Poverty report, Feeding Britain, is. I can best say only that it is not what I hoped it would be. I hoped for a reasoned account of why so many people are forced to go to food banks, why that number has risen so much during the years of coalition government, and what can be done to eliminate the need. Some of those elements are there but poorly argued, badly evidenced and insufficiently marshalled into coherence. Most of all I expect some passion, but there appears to be none in this ...
So, we know that Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale will be the new leadership team for Scottish Labour. Murphy won the leadership with 55% of the vote and Dugdale won the deputy post with 63%. The result was announced at the Emirates – the one in Glasgow, not, as I initially thought when I was told yesterday, the one in London. But Labour wouldn't be so stupid as to announce in London when their last leader quit after complaining that Scotland was treated as a branch office. Murphy is a Big Beast, having been part of the last Labour government ...
From the latest edition of Liberator magazine: [IMG: Liberator on the reshuffle] It wasn't just at the Cabinet level that changes had been contemplated. One of the reasons for some of the more recent decisions by MPs to leave their posts was that they had been holding on for the expected reshuffle either in order to use it as a hook for their own move or because they were hoping first for promotion. Details on how to subscribe to Liberator are here.
[IMG: ALDC Master Logo (for screen)] Eleven principal council by-elections were held across Britain yesterday. The two contests in Aylesbury Vale resulted in two Liberal Democrat wins. Peter Agoro was victorious in Southcourt ward, polling 42.3% to secure a comfortable majority of 317 votes as UKIP finished second. Labour, who were defending the seat, saw their vote share drop by 12.2% in finishing third. There was more good news as Anders Christensen held for the Liberal Democrats in Gatehouse, winning with a slender majority of 28 ahead of the UKIP candidate. These two victories see the party's representation on Aylesbury ...
The Lib Dem team would like to wish all our Jewish residents a very happy Hanukkah. Hannukah starts on the evening of Tuesday 16th December and ends on the evening of Wednesday 24th December 2014. * This particular version of the song Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah comes from the album Barenaked for the Holidays by Canadian rock group Barenaked Ladies, and has had a good deal of playtime in the Roberts' family car around Christmas over the years.
Paul Hulbert and Claire Young launching the petition in August Westerleigh Councillor Claire Young delivered a petition to a meeting of South Gloucestershire Council on Wednesday as part of an ongoing campaign for the completion of the 'Yate Spur' cycle path. The petition has so far been signed by over 300 residents from Yate, Westerleigh and further afield. Claire said: "This petition shows there is strong support for completing the "Yate Spur" cycle path, which currently stops just south of Westerleigh but is planned to link up the village and Yate with the Bristol-Bath railway path and the wider cycle ...
[IMG: Several NGOs have united together in calling for a constitutional convention, something they have been doing since the Scottish referendum came and went. Since a friend of mine emailed me yesterday to ask, and I quote, "What the fuck is a constitutional convention?", perhaps some clarity is required here. Basically, a bunch of politicians pile into a room together to discuss the problems facing the UK constitution. Given they are all from different parties, with very different opinions on how the constitution should be changed were it ever to be changed (with most of them feeling like any ...
Only days since my last posting on this matter the Liverpool Echo sadly carries yet another horrific lead article about guns on our local streets. Come on Jane Kennedy just what is being done to rid us of them? We need a firm and clear public line from our Police & Crime Commissioner that gives us confidence that guns are going to be brought under control on Merseyside.
Grayling back in the dock over legal aid cuts for domestic violence victims - FAO @timfarron I normally don't agree with people who say the lib dems have "allowed" the tories to ride roughshod over vulnerable people because in most cases we HAVE ameliorated things. Not this. This is a badge of shame. (tags: ) Finland ditches copyright levy on digital kit, pays artists directly (tags: ) The Indy covers Christopher Lee's traditional heavy metal Christmas song this year :) (tags: ) Report From The Mass Face-Sitting Protest Outside Parliament (tags: ) It's semi-official! Men are stupider than women (tags: ...
There was much excitement in my household this morning when, on opening the Guardian newspaper, we found that one of their journalists and a photographer had abandoined their plush London office to come to South Wales. The plan is to retrace Nigel Farage's infamous but abortive journey to Margam, which was allegedly disrupted to the point of being irretrievable by hordes of immigrants doing everything they could to stop him reaching God's own country. For once the Guardian journalist has no excuse, she cannot avoid reaching the promised land. All she has to do is to stick to the M4 ...
[IMG: A27 Polegate bypass. Photo courtesy of http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3070188 - copyright Julian P Guffogg (CC BY-SA 2.0)] The BBC reports: Stephen Lloyd has resigned as parliamentary private secretary to the Energy Secretary Ed Davey over "vague promises" for road improvements. He criticised the government's "utterly lamentable" failure to fund improvements at an accident blackspot. In a statement he said he felt Eastbourne had been "let down". A transport investment strategy announced on Monday did not include a proposal to increase capacity to ease traffic at the blackspot on the A27 between Lewes and Polegate in East Sussex... "After all the work ...
[IMG: liberator] The latest issue of Liberator, the independent radical liberal magazine, is now with subscribers. Live sample contents from Liberator 369 online are: Commentary, on the Lib Dem general election messages. The lead story from Radical Bulletin on the Federal Executive's foul-ups over OMOV and gender quotas. The main feature, A Pause On The Road To Independence Wendy Kyrle-Pope campaigned for a 'no' vote in the Scottish referendum, but thinks the issue will soon be back – with a majority for independence likely Please note that we are now using the website: www.liberatormagazine.org.uk and the email address; collective@liberatormagazine.org.uk This ...
As a trustee of the Dundee University Student Trading and Innovative Enterprise, branded as DRIVE Enterprises, I met yesterday with Bogdan Handrea, Project Manager, to get an update on the DRIVE bicycle hire project. The project has made a great job of creating a highly professional base at its offices at 75 Old Hawkhill (see photos above and below) and the project is going extremely well with a long-term strategy and new carbon reduction projects in the pipeline. DRIVE is a great social enterprise that offers young entrepreneurial people from all over Dundee a place to meet like-minded individuals and ...
[IMG: ???????????????????????????????] As 2014 draws to a close this may well be my last posting about war memorials 100 years since the start of World War One. This is a shot of the truly magnificent war memorial at Port Sunlight Village on the Wirral which is close to the Lady level art Gallery. I say my last posting on this theme; that is unless anyone sends me another photo of a war memorial..................... The photo above is amongst those on my Flickr site at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/
Congratulations to George Murray, who has re-gained the lead from Jon Featonby in the LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League after Week 15. But it's tight at the top: just four points separate them... almost a two-horse race, you might say. This week will be a test for many of us, as sure-fire points-winner Sergio Agüero is ruled-out with injury for several games. Me, I've swapped him for Andy Carroll. This is the kind of decision which may explain why I'm languishing in mid-table obscurity (unlike third-placed Mark Widdop). [IMG: LDV FANTASY FOOTBALL_15] There are 157 players in total and you can ...
The Welsh economy has grown faster than any other part of the UK, but still has a long way to go new figures released last week show. Statistics published by ONS show that between 2012 and 2013 Wales saw a 3.4% increase in GVA per head, the fastest growth out of all the nations and regions of the UK. Since 2010, GVA per head has grown by 8.4% in Wales more than other UK regions, bar London. These figures show that the tough action taken by Liberal Democrats in the UK Government is succeeding in building a stronger economy. Lib ...
As you might be able to tell from recent posts, I'm suffering from exhaustion, which is causing stress headaches and random bursts of crying, hence the few days off from posting recently. Tomorrow is an actual day off, where I don't have to do anything at all, so I plan to get a backlog again [...]
