The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here's an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many [...]
These shots were taken in Lydiate on 28th and 29th December – no fancy camera or photo shopping:- [IMG: rsz_lydiate_sunset____28_12_14] [IMG: rsz_sunset_29_12_14] And the Liverpool Echo has some great shots on its web site:-
The State of the Political Parties 2015 has the potential to be a landmark year in British politics. The general election that is likely to happen on 7th May 2015 is both the most exciting election and the most unpredictable election since 1974. There are six political parties that are getting noteworthy support: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the Green Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). Conservative PartyDavid Cameron has been the Prime Minister for the last five years and he will be aiming to win a second term in ...
Alistair Carmichael, Secretary of State for Scotland, calls for healing and unity in 2015. He commits himself the delivery of the Smith Agreement and hopes to secure enough parliamentary support to implement votes for 16 and 17 year olds for all elections: Undoubtedly 2014 was a landmark year for Scottish politics. Everyone expected the independence referendum to shine a spotlight on Scotland but I'm not sure anyone was expecting the unprecedented levels of interest - from home and abroad and from the political anoraks to those who would normally be classed as disengaged. People in Scotland decided to remain part ...
When I wrote yesterday that UKIP's future looks to feature a big fight between its various factions, I hadn't expected it to start in earnest until after the election. Even with a lot of underlying tensions visible in the current battles over candidate selection, I had assumed that the prospect of electoral success would paper over the cracks in the short term but Douglas Carswell appears to have decided not to wait. (That's a Daily Mail link, just so you're warned) Carswell's going over some old ground here, as it's close to the message of his victory speech after the ...
[IMG: STVaction] The Liberal Democrats' mistake in 2010 was not to insist on STV for electing MPs - but merely to accept a referendum on a miserable little compromise - as a condition of entering into a coalition. This is not recriminatory. I appreciate the problems and pressures of negotiating a coalition and that senior Lib Dems wanted to create stability and help repair the damage to the economy. I say it was a mistake not just with hindsight. I have believed it for about 50 years. The senior party in a coalition will tend to take the credit for ...
View image | gettyimages.com Janan Ganesh's biography of George Osborne, now out in a slightly expanded paperback edition, has been rightly praised for its style, research and sharp analysis. And yet, and yet... at the end of reading it I still feel a big disjuncture between the the George Osborne in the book and the George Osborne who wants to cut public spending massively further without a penny of tax rises after 2015. [IMG: George Osborne by Janan Ganesh] Ganesh is sympathetic to Osborne without ever being sycophantic and unsurprisingly paints a much kinder picture of him that Labour politicians ...
It's now one year since three Al Jazeera journalists have been in prison in Egypt, for the simple "crime" of doing their job. One of them is a former colleague of mine at the BBC, Peter Greste, from Australia, from where his family and friends have organised a formidable lobbying campaign for his release. The [...]
Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we're bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here's today's offering... Opinion: Why changing leader now WILL save the party in 2015 and beyond – Jonathan Pile | Tue 24th June 2014 Could ditching Clegg this summer really help the party? Absolutely Yes. It would signal that we have listened to the voters - a fundamental requirement for a party that calls itself democratic. A new leader - be it Vince Cable, Tim Farron or anyone else known by the public to have agonised with the choices forced on the ...
Announcement from the Dundee Liberal Democrat website today : Dundee Liberal Democrats have announced that well-known Dundee law student, McManus 2013 Citizen of the Year and Dundee football referee, Daniel Coleman has been selected as Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate for Dundee West in advance of next year's Westminster General Election. Daniel has been Chair of the Dundee Youth Council, a former Deputy Head Boy at St Paul's RC Academy and student at the University of Dundee, and has represented the city as a Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament. Following the announcement of his selection as the LibDem candidate Daniel ...
The support beams for the new bridge were put into place the night before last, so you can now see the increased clearance that will be needed for the overhead electric cables. The new support beams rest on the century-old supporting piers Trains are running regularly under the partly constructed bridge
[IMG: Railway - Some rights reserved by freefotouk] I was one of the 'victims' of the Network Rail engineering fiasco of 27 December. I won't over-encumber you with details but the experience has certainly shaken my faith in railways as a means of long distance travel. No doubt there will be equivalent experiences with roads and airlines to bring me back into line as well as the usual desire not to wreck the planet with my travel arrangements. In fact my family of five (including 80 year old mother) escaped the train at Peterborough (unscheduled stop to offload some passengers ...
Over the past 3 years Liberal Democrats have become increasingly concerned at the declining standards in scrutiny and behaviour within Liverpool City. They have already suggested that outside 'peers' should be brought in and now they are following up these ... Continue reading →
There's a raft of stuff in the Guardian his morning about young people and voting. A big poll has been done on 17 – 22 year olds. Most of what comes out is roughly what you'd expect: this group is more pro-European, more liberal generally than those in older age groups. The stuff that is interesting is how high support for the Greens is – 19% versus 41% for Labour. About a quarter of people in this age bracket support the Tories. There is one figure in amongst the rest that I highly doubt, not because I think there's a ...
View image | gettyimages.com First it was Danny Alexander, now David Laws: [David Laws] has criticised George Osborne's post-election deficit reduction plans are a "suicide note" for the Tories... He said the scale of proposed austerity was a "huge policy and strategic blunder"... "It is easy to talk about balancing the books by cutting spending and not raising people's taxes and of course that sounds popular," Mr Laws told the Sunday Times. "But when you look at what the consequences are for the armed forces, police and education you realise it is a very extreme, right-wing strategy that may appeal ...
It's what you've all been waiting for, I know. I've been writing my monthly 'The Underdog' column for Total Politics magazine since October 2013, and have finally gotten round to uploading them. Two ways you can read all of them: Click on this link (Scribd); or Click on this link (links within this site). Or just read on, below... The Collected Stephen Tall's Total Politics Columns (2013-14)
The title of this post is very deliberately chosen. These are my favourite films of the year rather than the best films. This is not just a concession to the subjectivity of such an exercise but an acknowledgement that I've probably not seen most of the best films of the year. I watch a lot [...]
We continue our saunter through the year in the eyes of Liberal Democrat Voice authors and contributors. In March we had our Spring Conference in York and the build-up to Nick vs Nigel intensified. But first, we had to deal with someone behind the scenes briefing against both Tim Farron and party activists. By and large, this party has been pretty together given he challenges that presented themselves over the last few years with little public sniping. Caron Lindsay just wanted everyone to play nice. I don't want to over-egg the pudding, because, by and large, members of the party ...
These can be found by following this link:
Ayn Rand Reviews Children's Movies (The New Yorker, 12/18/2014) (tags: ) Current sexual orientation: Idris Elba decorating a Christmas tree in space (tags: ) Top ten #QTWTAIN for 2014 - only two of them from the Daily Fail. 3 is my fave. (tags: ) So apparently the done thing is to vote for Nigel Farage for Rear of the Year cos he's such an arse (tags: ) Ched Evans rape victim 'forced to move house five times' - and people wonder why we don't report (tags: ) On the origins of Jigsaw from the Saw movies - VERY convincing theory ...
Watch the new video from Amnesty International UK:
On Friday 2nd January from 11am to 1pm, weather permitting, the Friends of the University of Dundee Botanic Garden are inviting Friends and their families to celebrate the New Year with a run, walk, or stroll round the Garden, followed by drinks and nibbles in the glasshouse. See poster below :
I have been asking questions about his at Maghull Council meetings recently as indeed has Labour Councillor Steve Kermode, to give him his due. Separately we seem to have come to a similar point of view i.e. the Council's commercial activities (using parks & gardens staff to bid for work outside of the Council) are not at all well documented in the reports/accounts made available to members of the Council. Over the past couple of years Maghull TC has been engaging in commercial activities via its Parks and Gardens Maintenance staff, by using them to bid for commercial contracts to ...
As nominations open for the annual Rear of the Year, there is an emergent campaign on some social media networks to hijack the competition by nominating Nigel Farage. The Independent has the details here. Apparently, he qualifies because he is an 'arse'. No good can come of this. However, if you want to take part in the competition then vote here.
