View Poll: Hammer Dracula Deaths Myself, I'm going to find this one REALLY hard to answer, but I love them all. Except maybe Scars, which has too much Dennis Waterman & not enough not-Dennis-Waterman [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The photograph above shows the unveiling of Sir Frank Dobson's sculpture 'Woman with a Fish' at St Katherine's Gardens in the centre of Northampton in the early 1950s. It was first exhibited at the 1951 Battersea Park sculpture exhibition. Today, as my photograph below shows, you will find it in the gardens at Delapre Abbey.
Following tonight's news about the further delay in the publication of the Chilcot Report until after the election, Nick Clegg has written to Sir John Chilcott to ask him to get on with it. Here's his letter in full Sir John, I read your letter providing an update on progress with the Inquiry you chair into the United Kingdom's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I was disappointed to read its content, however, and find it extremely frustrating that the findings of this Inquiry will not be made public in days and weeks, but potentially months. When the independent ...
I was a wee bit amused by this story from the Spectator about Vince Cable: Word reaches Steerpike that a number of staff working with the Business Secretary, who has a PhD in Economics, have been advised to refer to him strictly as Dr Vince Cable in written correspondence. 'We were a bit surprised that Vince Cable won't do as that's what we are used to but it apparently has to be Dr Vince,' a mole whispers. A Liberal Democrats source says that far from coming as a request from the business secretary himself it's official guidance that in formal ...
...or not. I've always been a little dubious about the No More Page 3 campaign. Not about its aims as such — I tend to agree that newspapers are not the right place for soft porn, although I would also question whether the Sun can really be classed as a "newspaper" in any real sense, [...]
This week the Scottish Parliament and Westminster both pass a Section 30 Order. Section 30 is the bit of the Scotland Act 1998 which allows powers to be given from Westminster to Holyrood. Two years ago a Section 30 Order gave the Scottish Government the power to hold the referendum on independence. This week's transfers the power to the Scottish Parliament to give 16 and 17 year olds the vote in the next Holyrood elections which take place in May 2016. It will have to be confirmed by the Privy Council in March but that's just a formality. This means ...
Library devolution conversations on hold in Cornwall whilst the impact of a legal challenge to Lincolnshire Council is being studied. Today, at Full Council, I asked the new Portfolio Holder for Libraries, Geoff Brown, why conversations over devolution of library services to town councils seem to have stalled. He explained that, Lincolnshire was embarking on a path of devolving libraries to Town Councils when Greenwhich Leisure challenged the council that the process of transferring the running libraries was not open and transparent and they believed they could provide the service for the Council and that what they could offer was ...
Perhaps it was inevitable. Certainly there was hope for a while. But yesterday we heard that plans for an environmental enterprise and education zone on Coder Road won't go ahead because Shropshire Council has sold the site. This is not the end to Cwm Harry's involvement in Ludlow or Coder Road. But once again, Shropshire [...]
Spalding Today has a short particle about the excellent George Smid, who has been selected to fight South Holland and the Deepings for the Liberal Democrats in May's general election: "I have collected a number of experiences: communist Czechoslovakia, a stateless refugee, professional career, a night-shift dishwasher, working for a multinational corporation, running my own business - to name but few."
[IMG: policy-definition-and-ruler_1283516768] There's a certain inevitability in the fact that the day after the Greens break through 10% in a poll, a 'look at all these wacky Green policies' article appears in the Telegraph. Those of us with long memories will remember similar articles appearing on a regular basis over the years, right back to 1989 when they normally featured some reference to David Icke as Prime Minister. (At that point, the height of Icke's weirdness was having played for Coventry City and being one of the Greens' five Principal Speakers – the wearing turquoise and seeing alien lizards everywhere ...
Even well after finishing David Wolstencroft's Good News Bad News, I'm not really quite sure what to make of how good or enjoyable this espionage novel by the creator of the TV series Spooks is. [IMG: David Wolstencroft - Good News Bad News] On the up side, it is a genuine page turner and the opening phases of the book are brilliant. The book looks set to become a dark bureaucratic satire with touches of Monty Python, and you're left quite unsure who is really who. Living in London, I also enjoyed the plausible details of the setting of much ...
The news that the richest one per cent of the world's population will shortly own more than the other 99 per cent is an important symbolic moment. Whether it was by accident or design, the way the financial world is currently structured is hoovering up the assets from everyone else, with serious implications - not just for the poor, but also for the middle classes, as I explained in my book Broke. This is not just the structure of the system that has emerged. It is also a by-product of the vast transfer of public money to the banks from ...
Identifying the individuals Experience has shown there are a number of things that go wrong: leaving it too late, leaving it all to one person (who is often busy fighting the campaign as well) and relying on the same old faces etc We have now developed some new ways to address the problem. As dealing [...]
There's some interesting discussion on my social media timeline about the Sun's decision to stop printing clothes of topless women on Page 3. On one hand you have the male dominated group of people who think this is a dreadful infringement of liberty enacted by sinister feminists with An Agenda. Just you wait, they'll be after your porn yet, they warn. They don't like the fact that the No More Page 3 campaign started by Lucy-Anne Holmes and backed by more than 200,000 people has got what it wanted. It's illiberal, they scream, for one group of people to interfere ...
I moderate all comments on this blog. Not because I intend censor anyone particularly, but because I have legal responsibility for it, and like to know what is going up on it. I also have standards, as outlined in the sidebar. One thing that I don't encourage as comments irrelevant to the subject at hand - they're confusing, and nobody really reads them. Yesterday, I got this;Procedure By Which conservatives Could Control Parliament If UKIP is Lucky, UKIP could get, perhaps, get five to ten seats in Parliament. Do not forget, the public still regards UKIP as a one issue ...
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about those important party elections, details of which were hidden in an obscure corner of the party website. Well, our stirring did generate a few nominations which meant that there were a good few contested positions. Federal Executive members voted over last weekend and the results were declared last night. Here they are in full: Deputy Chair of the Federal Executive Neil Fawcett Federal Finance and Administration Committee Chair Peter Dunphy FFAC Members Liz Leffman Glenn Hughes Peter Ellis Edward Lord Seth Thevoz Party Treasurer Ian Wrigglesworth Campaigns and Communications Committee Chair ...
In May's local elections we need Lib Dem candidates more than ever. Target Candidates Standing as a Lib Dem candidate, even in a paperless ward, is a service to the party that is easily and often under-estimated. As ever it's a hard slog to match all our target wards with the right calibre of candidate. [...]
I enjoyed the Bryant v Blunt twitter spat as much as anyone. It was nice to see a political social media argument where the gloves really came off, as opposed to the usual platitudinous nonsense these things usually conform to. My only dilemma revolved around to who to support. It's human inclination to want to take a side in any dispute one is an objective witness to, even just for fun. My problem came down to the unsavoury nature of both participants. I have had to sit through enough of James Blunt's music, almost always whilst going through the motions ...
One of the worst jobs in politics has to writing the UKIP manifesto. After all, no sooner do you get the document signed off than the party leader is disowning it, whilst other activists and candidates go off and make up their own policies. It is little wonder that The Times reports today that the party has sacked its policy chief for failing to deliver the document on time. The paper understands that Ukip had set the beginning of January as the deadline to agree policies before sending off the manifesto to be checked and costed by an independent think-tank ...
Today is "Democracy Day", a project running across BBC TV and Radio. It's fitting that in this same week, Nick Harvey and I have published proposals to bring decisions closer to those whom they affect: a prerequisite for real democracy in Britain. Here on Liberal Democrat Voice, we have already had considerable debate over the merit of "devolution on demand" as compared to a big-bang, devolution-everywhere-now solution. My views are well rehearsed! However, the benefit of the CentreForum Devolution Dialogue in which Nick and I set out our alternative positions is that it brought us together in a greater measure ...
From the Liberal Youth website: Do you self-identify as being from a Black, Asian, or other ethnic minority background? Do you have what it takes to be a political leader of the future? Do you think young people should be more engaged and involved in the political life? Do you want to gain insight into politics? We invite you to apply to an exciting weekend to develop professional skills and engage with senior Liberal Democrats, including MPs, councillors and Parliamentary candidates. Throughout the weekend, you will receive training on key skills to help you further your career in politics, meet ...
I suppose we should all know by now, but it still seems odd to me that the positions taken up by many Peers seem so at variance with their Party, their colleagues in the Commons and with their promises to the electorate in party manifestos. In recent days Labour backbench Peers have been universally critical, to the point of demolition attempts, of the Recall of MPs Bill, which was foreshadowed in their 2010 manifesto and strongly supported by their leadership and MPs. To some extent I have been sympathising with their concerns. I have repeatedly said in the Committee debates ...
I don't follow vast numbers of Twitter feeds, predominantly because it gets harder for me to pick up the important bits as the volume of posts gets bigger. I do, however, follow two of my local Labour PPCs, Jane Basham in South Suffolk, and Deborah Sacks in South Norfolk. Deborah is an old university colleague from my days at UEA, and another North London emigre in rural East Anglia. Jane, on the other hand, I first encountered when she ran as the Labour candidate for Suffolk's Police and Crime Commissioner. She very nearly won, something of a miracle given just ...
There has been much made of UKIP's confused stance on the NHS in recent months, with UKIP invariably seeking to quash rumours that it is not particularly friendly towards the idea of a publicly-run NHS. First, there was UKIP deputy leader Paul Nuttall's infamous claims that "the very existence of the NHS stifles competition" and that "the NHS is not fit for purpose". These were soon deleted and denied by some as evidence of an anti-UKIP conspiracy, but the undeniable truth is that these comments were made. Nigel Farage was also filmed telling supporters: "I think we are going to ...
The spotlight will be on the Tudor period at the Katharine of Aragon Festival in Peterborough at the end of January. There is something for all ages, with Tudor activity days and costumed re-enactors at Peterborough Museum, and at Peterborough Cathedral a presentation on "The Exile of Katharine of Aragon" given by best-selling historian and [...]
Yesterday was supposedly "blue Monday" - the most depressing day of the year. The idea was dreamed up in 2005 by a TV marketing campaign to sell holidays and the myth persists. But yesterday, Nick Clegg and I were talking about something really serious. Almost 4,700 people took their own lives in 2013 in England alone, and suicide remains one of the biggest killers for men under the age of 50. We hosted a conference bringing together leading figures in the mental health world to call for an ambition for 'zero suicides' across the NHS. Liberal Democrats in Government have ...
What can you expect to find on the roads locally in the next few months? 1 Showcase roundabout: the lights will be switched off from today 20th January for 6 weeks while they are upgraded. The middle of the roundabout will be closed and it will operate like a normal roundabout. Please have patience with the extra queuing at peak times and please take extra care, especially with respect to pedestrians and cyclists, as there won't be any lights to help pedestrians cross the road during this period. 2 A new cycleway will be put down Reading Road in Winnersh, ...
Lots of my constituents take a great interest in my self-sufficient, food growing activities so I've put together this short video looking back at 2014. It was a year in which we had a number of new projects, such as getting a milking goat and keeping quail. We also won a number of prizes at local agricultural shows and, as usual, made loads of preserves.
Last night I was at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for the Writers' Guild Awards, of which ALCS (on whose Board I sit) is a sponsor. The setting was suitably glitzy and the host, Sandi Toksvig, in scintillating, cheeky form. Among the presenters, nominees and audience were such luminaries as Howard Brenton, Christopher [...]
Reviews of Chaplains and the Coach and Horses licences in Consett are being sought by the police following the seizure of counterfeit alcohol in November. The details of the review – and where you can send comments to – are below. You can write to the Licensing Department at County hall or call 03000 265107 (General Licensing Number) 1. Application Type – Application for the Review of a Premises Licence (to address concerns relating to the Prevention of Crime and Disorder and Public Safety) Applicant - Mr M Barton, The Chief Constable of Durham, Durham Constabulary Premises - Coach & ...
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"What I need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing" says Labour's Peter Mandelson on M...
Well, well. Who would have thought Peter Mandelson of all people would back a Liberal Democrat policy over a Labour one? The Guardian has the story: Speaking on Newsnight on BBC2, Mandelson said he favoured finding new ways of taxing property in Britain. But he added: "I don't happen to think that the mansion tax is the right policy response to that. I think it's sort of crude, it's sort of short-termist. "What we need is what I think the Liberal Democrats are proposing and that is the introduction of further bands that relate to different values of property within ...
Here's our winning @LibDems Election poster design (h/t @HopelessSurfer) pic.twitter.com/QGIJfZWn1x — The Poke (@ThePoke) January 19, 2015
Many Britons complain that political correctness stops important issues being talked about. By that they usually mean immigration and cultural integration. Now we talk about these things all the time, and we are coming to understand why that culture of political correctness was a good idea. Pointless, nasty behaviour to immigrants and people from ethnic minorities is on the rise, while yet more rubble is strewn in the path of necessary economic development. But there are issues that are important but where there is a conspiracy of silence. Foremost amongst these is Britain's National Health Service (NHS). This is not ...
There are lots of activities and ways you can help raise funds for the National Autistic Society, whether it's at school, at work, on your own or with friends and family - andit all helps promote awareness of autism. Please check out the National Autistic Society's website for details of how to take part.
The history of UKIP is a fascinating one, and I urge all of you who have not yet read Revolt on the Right by Rob Ford and Matthew Goodwin to do so. It recalls UKIP's beginnings as a sort of techy, academic bunch founded by LSE history professor Alan Sked and follows its evolution towards being a libertarian sanatorium for Eurosceptic Tories. It was written just as the move from that mould to its current one, in which Farage says things like he couldn't get to a meeting because the M4 is clogged with immigrants, was in mid-flow. The direction ...
A former BNP activist, currently a student at MMU, has taken to Twitter to proudly announce how he targeted Gatley, and in particular local councillor Iain Roberts, with literature promoting race hate, attacking both Jews and Muslims in our community. Far-right racists have been illegally fly-posting in parts of Gatley with "Multiculturalism is Genocide" stickers – promoting their incoherent views. Following up residents' complaints, Iain raised this with Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd. "I'm proud to live in a strong community where people from different backgrounds and religions get along and work together for the good of ...
Charlotte Barnes, the Liberal Democrat councillor for Bishop's Castle in Shropshire and also the party's candidate for the Ludlow constituency in May's general election, is encouraging people not to buy milk from stores that fail to pay a fair price to local farmers. She told the Shropshire Star: "The long term problem has been the supermarket's strangle-hold on prices - this is what has pushed our dairy industry into long term decline. "It's clear from the research that prices paid vary widely with some paying particularly low sums to farmers." Interestingly, Charlotte has suggested using the Fairtrade Mark on British ...
[IMG: wpid-wp-1416472228398.jpeg] A couple of months ago, I wrote about Reluctant Europeans?, David Sanders' inaugural Regius Professorship lecture at the University of Essex. The lecture, and the panel discussion chaired by John Bercow that followed it, are now available online for you to watch. I think a lot of you will find both parts of it interesting. The lecture is about an hour long and it's a very good look at how British people think about European issues. It uses some quite recent academic research but isn't aimed at a purely academic audience and Professor Sanders is a very good ...
Yorkshire 'should be in 1st wave of devolution' - LDHQ catches up with Yorkshire regional policy (tags: ) Bisexual women 'more likely' to have mental health problems ... because they are picked on by both sides. I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with "suffer mental health problems" being used for "get PTSD because society treats them like crap, and then the people they expect to help treat them like crap TOO". (tags: ) New Train Stations. Note: Elland is already being reclassified as part of Leeds City Region (tags: ) Gnome Chomsky: The Essential Ornament for the Thinking Person's Garden (tags: ...
[IMG: rsz_lydiate_sunrise_20_01_15] Looking towards Maghull with ice having started to form on the Leeds Liverpool Canal. This photo is amongst my Flickr shots at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/
We want to tell you as much as we can about the wonderful Liberal Democrats who will be putting themselves before the electorate in May. Our Edinburgh South candidate is Pramod Subbaraman who is a dentist. Pramod is a dentist and recently, on GDPUK, a site for dental opinion and information, he explained his decision to join the Liberal Democrats, which was rooted in Nick's sensible stance on immigration. He explains what liberalism means to him: Liberalism, it really is a no brainer. It sounds right, it looks right and it is right ( well , centre or left of ...
I know people in the past have been sorry to miss our local Artisan (Farmers) Markets: Prestwich Artisan Market The Longfield Shopping Centre, off Bury New Road 22 February 2014 Parking Longfield Shopping Centre is located off Bury New Road, Prestwich. There is plenty of free parking on town centre car parks and on-street, and the Metrolink is just a 3 minute walk away. SatNav Postcode M25 1AY. Whitefield Artisan Market Hamilton Road Park, off Bury New Road 25 January 2015 (this Sunday!) 22 March 2015 Parking Hamilton Road Park is located off Bury New Road. There is on street ...
Going through my parent's house over the last few months has taken ages. They'd lived there since 1963 until my father died at the end of 2007. Mum had subsequently lived there alone until she needed to go into a nursing home in 2013. Now that they're both gone, the task of sorting through the house and the memories that are attached to it has been left to me and my brother. Before we started, we'd made a plan. We both like plans – we're good at those. First pass – sort through the house and throw out the obvious ...
We do not need to tell you about the very cold weather at the moment. Please do take care of yourself and also think about neighbours, particularly those who live alone or people who might be more vulnerable. The national charity Age UK has produced a number of advice articles about winter – obviously aimed at older members of the community, but with some useful advice for all of us! The full range of information pages are here. The below advice is on keeping your home warm: Keeping your home warm Low temperatures increase the risk of flu and other ...
[IMG: Southport FC] The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above. Oh dear what is going on, he was there for such a short time. Why walk away when things were turning around for the Sandgrounders? Football is always about today these days, does anyone plan for even next week?
A damaged fence from the rear of a property in Lochee Road has blown across the pathway leading to Benvie Road from the Benvie steps. See below :I have asked the City Council's Rapid Response Team to have the panel moved safely off the pathway and the Housing Department's Private Sector Unit to speak with the landlords concerned about having the fence repaired.
Another cracking video highlighting Lynne Featherstone's work for her constituents, this time making Alexandra Palace train station accessible for everyone: I said "another" because of this earlier one:
SEFTON SELL OUT TO CONSULTANTS John Pugh, the Lib Dem MP for Southport, has hit out at Sefton Council's "supine dependence on consultants" who he claims are seriously compromising council decision making. [IMG: Dr. John Pugh Lib Dem MP for Southport] Dr. John Pugh Lib Dem MP for Southport He cites as instances the advice Sefton has received on both housing and retail where he says the consultants that Sefton use have clear conflicts of interest. Sefton rely heavily for their projection of housing numbers on a firm called Nathaniel Litchfield whose biggest clients are house builders and on White ...
I note that there is some fuss about Chuka Umunna's decision to walk out of an interview with Dermot Murnaghan yesterday morning on Sky, having decided not to put up with being ambushed on the question of Eric Pickles' letter to Muslim leaders across the country. You can argue legitimately about whether or not the letter was the right thing to do, and I would expect that those who have read it (I am not included in that category, I admit) to have a view on it. On the other hand, it would be nice to see a little integrity ...
Two more major pieces of investment have recently been announced by our local Labour-run Council. New Bus Station Bury Council and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) have now submitted plans for a significantly upgraded bus station in Radcliffe. Under the new plans, the station will have increased capacity, while passengers will benefit from new purpose-built shelters [IMG: x0nlsiqmkbrzccxk3pqj] Artists Impression of new Radcliffe Bus Station (Bury MBC) Works on the new bus station - subject to planning permission – will start in late March or early April 2015 with the new station being fully operational by November. 'Temporary' Swimming Pool ...
In Britain last year 4,700 people committed suicide. Three quarters of them were men, and suicide is the largest cause of death for young people and young men in particular. The North West has the second highest numbers of suicide rates in Britain. Last year 567 men and 146 women took their own lives in the North West. Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, made an important announcement as part of a major commitment to ensuring mental health services get the same commitment as other health concerns: Nick Clegg said: "Suicide is, and always has been, a massive taboo ...
Already one of the best recyclers in the country, Stockport now aims to reduce the waste going to landfill down to zero. Stockport residents recycle over 60% of our waste – we're in the top five nationally for recycling and third in the country for composting food and green waste – with all the other top councils being rural districts. Now we want to reduce our landfill waste down to zero. In addition to the recycling we put in our brown, blue and green bins, waste from the black bin is starting to go to a new incinerator where it's ...
NHS England CEO Simon Stevens recently produced his five year 'Forward View'. It says that the NHS needs an extra £8 billion every year above current planned budgets by 2020. I'm chuffed that Liberal Democrats have signed up to making this happen if in government. The NHS is a vital national institution and remarkably effective. It isn't perfect but considering the wild swings in its structure and how it is run with every new government it has proven remarkably resilient. What an amazing dedicated workforce. But the budget challenges of an ageing population, huge population growth and costs of new ...
