Every New Year for quite a while now Andreas Utermann, the Belgian Global CIO at Allianz Global Investors, who has a house in Hampstead, has generously sponsored a New Year reception for Hampstead Liberal Democrats; often it was in the magical Heath Library in Keats Grove, but tonight for the first time it was at [...]
Jake on satire. Proper post in a few minutes, but I thought this deserved sharing... Tagged: jake thackray, satire
Viz (even though it's not as good as it used to be) has today produced this marvelllous piece of satire:
A group of Indian women who have volunteered to man the auxiliary ambulance station in Augustus Street, St Pancras, London, undergoing a gas mask drill at the station. This photograph was taken on 23 December 1939.
I decided to have a go at putting the 7 Whickham Lib Dem Councillors' 2014 annual report to residents into a more interesting format. The inspiration for what I eventually produced came from Facebook and Google+ who automatically generated reviews of the year using uploaded photos. The Google+ version went one step further and added the music I use for the introduction and credits on my
Slogger O'Toole offers a host of reasons why the rise of referendums in British politics should be resisted. "The former mining towns of the South Wales Valleys have one of the highest levels of antidepressant prescribing in Wales, attracting lurid newspaper headlines about areas 'hooked on happy pills'. According to Cwm Taf University Health Board, which covers former mining towns including Merthyr Tydfil, Aberfan, and Pontypridd, as many as one in six of its residents are on antidepressants, the highest prescribing rate in the UK." Anne Gulland on why medication is the the answer to social and economic problems. Hynd's ...
Thu 8th
19:26
Smart politics by Cameron in trying to force inclusion of Greens in TV election debates
What's Labour's biggest electoral failing in this Parliament? It's failure to win over voters from the Tories. (The number of Conservative to Labour converts in this Parliament is tiny. Towards the end of last year ICM found just 2% of the Conservative 2010 vote had switched to Labour whilst Lord Ashcroft put it only at 4%.) And what's the biggest risk that things might get even worse? That left-wing voters who don't like Labour's boasts of making further cuts after May, curbing welfare further and reducing immigration will switch to the Greens. Which is why David Cameron's reaction to the ...
[IMG: Je suis Charlie by Clément Belleudy] We have made an extraordinary change to our home page. We have four "featured post" windows at the top of it. They contain a photo accompanied by a headline. Today we have changed all the photos to show a "Je suis Charlie" image. The headlines then link to articles, on the subject, which we have published so far. This is a small act, to underline a few things. First of all, it is to emphasise our sincere and deep sympathy with the family and friends of all those who died in the Charlie ...
I agree with Nick.
Thu 8th
18:48
If I'm in a hospital full of sick people, and I have an appointment, presumably I might be sick...
I've had a persistent, hacking cough for months now, and it has been annoying Ros, my work colleagues and random strangers for almost as long so, this morning I went to my local doctor's surgery, where a very attentive young doctor checked this, shone a light at that and measured the other. His conclusion? A chest x-ray was needed. My heart sank, "That'll be weeks...", I thought, but far from it. He gave me a form with some surprisingly legible handwriting on it (is this man really a doctor?) and explained that I should just turn up at Ipswich Hospital ...
It is encouraging to be part of a Lib Dem chorus from across the party denouncing Osborne's damaging, ideologically inspired, proposals for further deep cuts in spending on public services throughout the next Parliament. Being in coalition means that we have to go out of our way to differentiate ourselves clearly from the Tories on the central issue of economic policy. The Tories want to create an election narrative of Tory competence versus Labour incompetence (with the LibDems portrayed either as marginal to the story or cheering the Tories on). Next week's parliamentary debate on a fiscal charter makes the ...
I read somewhere that the boatman who rowed King William back across the river after the Battle of the Boyne is supposed to have asked the King which side won ... To which the King replied: "What's it to you? You'll still be a boatman." J.G. Farrell, The Singapore Grip
I was more than a little perturbed when I saw Ming Campbell on the BBC News Channel this morning. He was talking about yesterday's atrocity at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. He started well enough, saying that this was not just an attack on France but on our values, Then he worried me by asking that we now need to ask ourselves how much we need to curb freedom in order to protect it, adding that the bigger the threat, the greater the precautions you need to take. He brought it back a little by saying that you ...
[IMG: An election count - ballot papers being counted] You've probably noticed I quite often write about how British elections are run, how election law is changing and controversies that have kicked off. However, not all the stories appear on this blog or in my main Facebook/Twitter accounts. For a fuller range of stories (or if you just are interested in them and want to skip the pieces about toilet signage in Pizza Express and what Nick Clegg has got up to), take a look at my UK Election Law news Facebook page or follow @UKElectionLaw on Twitter. If you ...
David Cameron's stomping around the North today, yet again trying to persuade people that having elected mayors is a good idea. I've set out before why I don't like the current system of mayors (and their related 'democratic' position, Police and Crime Commissioners). In short, by concentrating power in one person and then severely restricting the ability of others to have any checks on that power, they're effectively anti-democratic. There are good arguments for separating executive and legislative power at all levels, but democracy is about more than just voting. Most of these proposals just seem to assume that having ...
[IMG: leaders debate] I'm unsure whether the leader of the Green party being included in the leaders' debates in 2015 would help or hinder the Lib Dems. On balance, at least on this occasion, I think it would help. True, the Lib Dems have leaked supporters to the Greens since 2010. But I think it's Labour which has the potential to be hit harder by Natalie Bennett's full-throated anti-austerity battlecry. Indeed, at least some of the decline in Labour's poll lead over the Tories in the past year is the result of ex-Lib Dems re-defecting from Labour to the Greens. ...
Thu 8th
15:30
Christmas in Bermondsey the Simon Hughes way: "Our big city is made up of little villages, little co...
Do you have those inevitable first week of January blues? This will warm your heart because it's really what politics is all about. It's about making people's lives better. It's a short film showing Simon Hughes going around various community events in his constituency on Christmas Day. As he said, the big city is made up of villages and we all need to look after each other. Enjoy. As much as it captures Simon's commitment to his community, it also shows the huge affection for him in it.
Only a few minutes ago I drove past what looked to be a serious accident on the roundabout at the junction of Green Lane and Westway. A cyclist was clearly involved and an ambulance was in attendance together with Police. To see a chap lying in the road surrounded by ambulance staff is a sobering experience. We must hope for the best for the poor chap.
Thu 8th
15:22
Remember seeing Def Leppard - Southampton Gaumont or Mayflower, it may have be renamed then, on the ...
via Facebook
It's been a month since my last post. Various activities got in the way of my blog writing over the past 4 weeks. In that time I've made two trips to London and one to Barcelona (all now carefully logged and explained on my travel blog). We've had one full council meeting (more about that shortly). And we had to take one of our goats up to Northumberland to get her mated. Filling in the DEFRA
Listening to the coverage of the terrible shootings in Paris, I keep finding myself thinking of Umberto Eco's wonderful post-modern extravaganza, The Name of the Rose, where the murderer turns out to be motivated by a fanatical religious hatred of humour. This is what Jorge de Burgos says: "Laughter is a devilish wind which deforms, uh, the lineaments of the face and makes men look like monkeys." The detective-monk William of Baskerville replies: "Monkeys do not laugh. Laughter is particular to men." Which is true. They then discuss whether Christ laughed. It seems to me, as a former theology student, ...
Thu 8th
14:00Call Clegg review: "You cannot have freedom unless people are free to offend each other"
A very croaky Nick was back in the hot seat for Call Clegg this morning. Gone was his usual jacket and tie-less shirt combo for a more relaxed pullover look, and he seems to have new glasses too. Yesterday's attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was uppermost in everyone's minds, with three questions on this. The first two were variations on the theme of "Is enough being done to stop this happening here?" The third provoked exactly the angry response you would expect from the leader of a liberal party. The questioner implied that the magazine's content ...
[IMG: nhs doc] Liberal Democrats have set out manifesto plans to safeguard the NHS for the future with funding to increase by at least £8bn per year in real terms by 2020. The Liberal Democrats are the first party to present a plan to meet the financial needs of the NHS as set out by Simon Stevens, the Chief Executive of NHS England in his Five Year Forward View. To achieve this boost in funding by 2020/21, Liberal Democrats will do three things: We will baseline into the budget of the NHS, the additional £2bn that Liberal Democrats secured in ...
The history of colonialism is filled with the quirky and the unexpected, if you know where to look. And I am reminded, courtesy of Michael Palin's "New Europe", of one of the more unlikely attempts at establishing an overseas colony. When you think of the Caribbean, you think of the English and the French, the Spanish and the Dutch, who, between them, stitched up a controlling interest in the various islands, growing sugar and attacking each other's shipping. And yes, the Danish had their little corner (now the US Virgin Islands), one which, obscurely, denied the Brandenburgers a Caribbean colony. ...
The Independent reports on Nick Clegg's response to a caller into his LBC phone-in programme on the Charlei Hebdo killings in Paris yesterday: "I'm sorry, Omar, I've got to interrupt. I think if I understand you correctly, I cannot express to you how strongly I disagree with you. There can be no excuse, no reason, no explanation... They have killed cartoonists who have done nothing more than drawings which they so happen to find offensive. "Here's the bottom line, Omar, at the end of the day in a free society people have to be free to offend each other. You ...
Thu 8th
12:30Tim Farron writes... Never has the political market been so crowded in the UK. Never has there been ...
I cannot start this article without expressing my deep shock and concern for the families affected by the attack on Charlie Hebdo. It is stark warning that we can no longer take for granted the liberal order which our predecessors fought for. It is a great honour to be appointed Foreign Affairs spokesperson and I want to thank Nick for giving me this opportunity. I am very aware that it is rare for foreign affairs to be the defining issue for most voters. But this election, as in so many other ways, is not running the usual course. UKIP has ...
I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that we were stunned by the events in Paris yesterday. I have no wish to recall those events, which have been described in shocking detail elsewhere. Suffice to say that this was a co-ordinated attack on a journal that has, for the last decade, unapologetically persisted in publishing satirical cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed. Charlie Hebdo is more than a French equivalent of Private Eye, although the comparison may be a good one. Both publications ridicule, mock, criticise and generally make fun of politicians, public figures, mainstream media and ...
The Yellow Cab features, of course. But more importantly this really nicely captures his commitment to his constituents and the role of local public services in making our society fairer:
It is time to redouble our efforts Yesterday a shooting in Paris killed ten journalists and injured many others at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical paper. The attackers escaped, shouting that they had avenged their prophet and glory to their God. In their wake, as France begins a day of mourning, the grief is punctuated by a return of a furious debate over the right to free speech and the politics of offence. This is not the first time that Islamic extremists have responded to offence with violence and death. In 1989 author Salman Rushdie was left fearing ...
Electricity North West (ENW), suspect that there is an oil leak on their network, and wish to carry out the necessary repairs. The cable runs through William Scholes Playing Fields (see image below). Repair work will commence work Friday 9th January, and should be completed within a fortnight. The excavation will be 5 meters long by 2 metres wide and will be totally surrounded by Heras Fencing for security of the job and protection of any pedestrians. Access to the fields will be maintained for pedestrians from the footpath running between Foxland Road and Beech Avenue. Vehicles will be parked ...
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union and United States. If agreed it will make it easier for companies and individuals across all EU member states and America to trade with one another, as well as encouraging greater bilateral investment. I wrote generally about TTIP on LDV back in July, given that it is party policy to support the agreement. However, even at that point a concerted campaign had begun linking TTIP to the supposed privatisation of the National Health Service, with union leaders, campaigning websites and politicians calling ...
First off, this is so obvious it shouldn't need saying, but in such shocking times it is best to be clear about as much possible: condemn the atrocity with no equivocation whatsoever. As no one really is offering an unequivocal response, that shouldn't need saying. But like I say, when a shock to the system this big strikes, it is best to be clear from the very start about everything. It has been interesting reading responses from around the political media to the horrific events in Paris. It always is when something terrible happens; how one is meant to respond ...
The British Curry Awards have become a firm fixture in the UK's gastronomic calendar, but they now have a vigorous rival in the form of the British Kebab Awards, whose third annual event was held last night at London's Park Plaza Hotel. It was a tribute to the driving force and organising ability of Ibrahim [...]
Thu 8th
10:55What do the academics say? Why you need to keep on hammering away with the tactical voting message
Welcome to the latest in my occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today, an extract by Stephen Fisher from Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: 50 things you need to know about British elections, edited by Philip Cowley and Robert Ford, which shows why hammering away at tactical voting messages is so important: On average over the last six [general] elections about one in five of third-placed party supporters have switched tactically. But there are almost as many people again who say they are voting tactically but are switching the wrong way. That is, they say in a ...
Our politicians are being stupid. Thus says the eminent US [IMG: International Festival of Literature in Cologne, Germany - 13 Oct 2012] economist Joseph Stiglitz in a recent article The Politics of Economic Stupidity. In spite of its title, however, the article spends most it words explaining the economics, and actually says very little about the politics, beyond saying it is stupid in pretty much all of the developed world. He is venturing similar views to fellow US academic and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman (who is even more vocal about stupidity) and the FT's Martin Wolf (whose comments are more ...
Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens would like to appoint three local, independent people to contribute to the work of the Independent Residents' Volunteer Panel. Members of the Panel are an important means of enhancing public trust and confidence in the handling of complaints against Avon & Somerset Police and supports the governance role of the Police and Crime Commissioner. You can find out more on the PCC website. The closing date for applications is 16th January.
Not in our name - Muslims respond in revulsion to Charlie Hebdo shooting (tags: ) BBC News - CES 2015: Deal reached on wireless charging (tags: ) Glyph head-mounted display shoots DLP images directly into your eyeballs (tags: ) Stephen Fry getting married isn't a cop-out - it's advancing the cause of gay people everywhere (tags: ) The Cast Of "Downton Abbey" Played Cards Against Humanity And It's So Very Wrong (tags: ) Danny Alexander is a bad choice to lead on the economy in the election campaign Nick Barlow nails my views on this. (tags: ) The only post ...
If you are a parliamentary or council candidate and you want to find out more about Lib Dem education priorities and 2015 manifesto policies, you can now go to the shiny new Liberal Democrat Education Association (LDEA) website. Whilst we have achieved a lot in this government including £2.5billion of pupil premium, free school meals for infants, a new progress-based measure to replace the A*-C metric and our programme for 2-year olds, many challenges remain. Teacher morale is low, mainly as a result of the Govian years of a lack of trust and respect for the profession coupled with a ...
A planning application has gone in to Sefton Council to convert a former off-licence premises in Maghull's Liverpool Road North into a pizza shop and it is proving to be controversial with residents living close to the site. One of the problems of this mixed shopping/residential area is the lack of parking. There are houses on both Liverpool Road North and Gordon Avenue that don't have off-street park facilities and the parking outside of the shops is very limited indeed. The only car park is that of the Coach and Horses Pub and it has previously installed gates in an ...
Over 30 budding creative entrepreneurs from Dundee and Angus College have been working with Dundee Heritage Trust partners on an exciting range of projects for the new High Mill Open Gallery. The entrepreneurs consisted of 3D designers and interactive media developers. The 3D design entrepreneurs developed plans and sketch perspectives to illustrate their design ideas for the interior of the new Hill Mills Open Gallery. These designs were then developed into 2D digital models using specialist 2D software. The brief for the Interactive Media entrepreneurs was to develop a mobile friendly website for the gallery. The website allows visitors to ...
An interesting observation from Peter Bradshaw: There is a strange new smoking-related trend in movies and television. I noticed it while watching The Theory of Everything, the excellent new film about Stephen Hawking, starring Eddie Redmayne. Then I noticed it watching That Day We Sang, the similarly excellent television play that was on over Christmas, written and directed by Victoria Wood, starring Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball about a poignant adult relationship in the late 1960s between two people who had sung together 40 years previously in a children's choir. These period dramas showed people in pubs, restaurants, cafes and ...
It may be the first month of the year. The date may still be in single figures. But we've got a strong entry, courtesy of Labour councillor Rosemary Healy: A Labour councillor has been suspended by the party for sharing on social media a parody of a Conservative election poster doctored to include an image of a Nazi death camp. Rosemary Healy, who represents the Mapperley ward on Nottingham City Council, insisted she had not spotted what the picture was of when she sent it on to more than 1,500 followers on Twitter and expressed "profound apologies". [IMG: Tory death ...
When the National Assembly for Wales passed its Children's Rights Measure in 2011, it promised to herald the way to a new era of inclusion and collaboration with children and young people. However since coming into force in May 2014, it has been hard to identify the positive impact. In my own portfolio, which covers the economy, transport and European issues, the rights of the child seem very rarely at the forefront of policy-makers minds. True, there has been little in terms of legislation within this policy area in this Assembly Term and so it is difficult to judge whether ...
