Despite a huge number of environmental campaigners present and 3 excellent petitions being presented Sefton's ruling Labour councillors ignored the public and voted through their Local Plan which puts acres of high grade agricultural land and Green Belt under concrete. Labour councillors standing for re-election in May were in turn presented with a message saying 'Sacked in May' by the campaigners. [IMG: rsz_img_3597] The Lib Dem Councillors, 2 independents and the small Tory Group voted against the plan.
Chair of the Parliamentary Save the Pub Group, Leeds NW Lib Dem, Greg Mulholland, visited Kingston earlier this week. Greg visitied the Willoughby Arms in North Kingston where he met local residents and publicans and talked about the next stage of the campaign to Save Our Pubs - ending permitted development rights that can see pubs change use to a supermarket or estate agent without any public say so. Greg and the all party group have tabled and amendment to the Infrastructure Bill on Monday to remove permitted development rights for pubs. More here. Richmond Park candidate, Robin Meltzer and ...
After his initial lack of success as a performer, Randy Newman spent several years working as a jobbing songwriter for Metric Music, writing songs that were then recorded by artists as varied as Ella Fitzgerald, Manfred Mann, and the Everly Brothers. While he wrote several moderately successful songs (such as Simon Smith and the Dancing [...]
[IMG: A road safely cleared of benefits claimants, immigrants and people who have been to France.] A road safely cleared of benefits claimants, immigrants and people who have been to France. Ukip has now added its Charnwood Parliamentary candidate, Lynton Yates, to the long list of Ukip resignations, suspensions, disavowals and expulsions. This one is for the leaflet calling for people on benefits to be banned from driving. But the apology issued is a classic mis-directed apology with the Press Association quoting a Ukip spokesperson as saying of Lynton Yates: He has apologised for any offence caused and was today ...
Yesterday came with some depressing news for trans voters, as the Green candidate for Cambridge, Rupert Read, came out with some, at best, ill-advised statements about the word "cis", during an argument with a Cambridge resident who was challenging him on the word "moron". As a philosopher of language, Dr. Read should know better than this, and his attempt at citing the dictionary to prove "moron" is not an ableist term may go down as one of the biggest amateur mistakes of this election campaign. Other people have written about Read's statements, but I'd also like to go into the ...
Stumbling and Mumbling is characteristically interesting in looking at the global onper cent: "If you want a picture of the global 1%, a bien-pensant 50-something in a house in north London might be more accurate than a billionaire hedge fund manager." "Third-party surveillance tools have grown from a virtually nonexistent industry in 2001 to one raking in over $5 billion annually. It's also enabled countries around the world to cheaply establish a crude surveillance state, one that manipulates citizens and threatens their privacy." Aaron Sankin on the unstoppable rise of the global surveillance profiteers. "Do not imagine that the effects ...
We have waited too long for the Chilcot Inquiry. I do not have to tell you this, the Lib Dems were after all the only one of the three major parties (despite the Tories fuss now) to disagree with going to war in Iraq. I am proud to say that it was the Liberal Democrat party who marched officially as a party to protest against the war. The estimated 1.5 million marchers going along Piccadilly were subsequently all disappointed that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, completely ignored their representations on the biggest march that had taken place in Britain ...
Pink News reports: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has praised a decision by NHS England to stop facilitating access to gay "cure" therapy. Despite the NHS not offering gay conversion therapy directly, until now patients seeking to change their sexuality have been connected to organisations which do provide it by NHS staff. However, an agreement has been signed by fourteen organisations including NHS England, which affirms that the controversial practice should not be offered to patients. .@pinknews quite right too. Thinking you can cure homosexuality is abhorrent and potentially harmful. Pleased to see this commitment. — Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) January ...
After I wrote about the fall in OU student numbers for a fourth consecutive year last Saturday, I decided to see if I could get a reaction from the five largest (by membership) UK-wide political parties by asking them about their policies for promoting lifelong learning. My first attempt was on Sunday. I sent this tweet to @LibDems, @Conservatives, @UKLabour, and @TheGreenParty. I even held my nose and sent it to @UKIP – after all, who knows what May will bring. HESA notes #openuniversity student nos fell 10% in 2013/14: http://t.co/rRTdu4AqBi What are the @LibDems #lifelonglearning proposals? — Tim Holyoake ...
As a friend of Nabeel Rajab, Sheikh Ali Salman and most of the 'Bahraini 13' who are serving long sentences including life for freedom of expression offences, Philip Hammond doesn't speak for me. [http://bit.ly/1E6iN2a] People should be allowed to criticise their government and to call for it to be changed, and its outrageous for Hammond to praise a hereditary absolute monarchy that locks peaceful opponents up and takes away their citizenship for these 'offences'.
Nick Clegg has been quoted this week as calling for the NHS "to commit to a new ambition for zero suicides". That is an aspiration that nobody could argue with, but it is unrealistic to believe that it can quite be achieved. Throughout human history and in every kind of society people have died by their own hand, and it would be naïve to believe that a government initiative can single-handedly change that. Nevertheless, he is right to identify suicide as a "massive taboo". He is also right to raise awareness of the risk. He was speaking particularly in relation ...
Disturbing news from Ammanford (I did not think I would ever type those words) as the Western Mail reports that Zeus the cat has gone missing. The paper says that Zeus, who is a well-known in the town for wandering around the shops stealing food and sleeping in inconvenient places has not been seen by his owner since Monday night: Now his owner Jessica Morris is praying for his safe return. "It's not the first time Zeus has gone missing, on previous occasions he has been gone a day or two but soon comes home for food," she told the ...
Few things are more complicated and opaque than the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade deal being hammered out between the EU and the USA. It has been criticized by activists and journalists such as George Monbiot, but Vince Cable asserts there is nothing to worry about. Who is right? When things get complicated, follow the money. Fortunately we now have a money bloodhound. The economist Thomas Piketty has spent a decade or more producing a huge scholarly work which reveals where the money is. His answer is simple: unless active measures are taken an ever larger proportion ...
Lib Dem MPs have reacted quickly and well to an appalling Home Office decision to make all asylum seekers, wherever they live in the UK, who have been refused leave to remain and are appealing, to have to travel to Liverpool to submit fresh evidence. The detail is in this pdf. Please write to your MP (Hywel Francis for Aberavon or Peter Hain for Neath) to sign the EDM below, and ask organisations that you know of who will be concerned of to write to their MP and circulate. LD4SOS have worked hard this week and there is now an ...
Thu 22nd
13:58
Another Lib Dem website brilliantly topical error message - a pity it's out of date so quickly
I wish I had seen this yesterday. [IMG: Page 3 error message] A brilliant response to the debate over Page 3. The party has been doing this a few times with its error messages recently. It's very amusing and it also directs people to relevant policy on the website. Unfortunately, as we've all found out, the Sun was trolling us all along. Former presidential candidate and new member of the Diversity Engagement Group Daisy Cooper said this about the Sun's behaviour on Facebook: So, pretending to stop Page 3 was just a bit of fun. Raising expectations then crushing them ...
The Leicester Mercury wins Headline of the Day.
Welcome to the latest in an occasional series. Today, Labour boasting about how it will carry on with cuts to immigration and welfare: [IMG: Labour backs Tories on immigration]
Scottish politics is an exercise in asymmetric warfare. The Scottish [IMG: Nicola Sturgeon] National Party (SNP) are steeped in the nation's own political culture, and focus on their objective of obtaining its independence. The unionist parties are more concerned with the politics of UK as a whole, and push their policies concerning Scotland and the Union into the "too difficult" pile until too late. This has been stark in the last few years. The SNP won their referendum on independence (i.e. holding the referendum, rather than the outcome, which they lost). At first Westminster politicians did not take the campaign ...
Thu 22nd
11:55Alistair Carmichael MP writes...A proud day as we move nearer to Liberal Democrat vision of home rul...
[IMG: Saltire - St Andrews Flag - Scotland - Some rights reserved by byronv2] One of my first political campaigns was the 1979 referendum on a Scottish Assembly, as it was then styled. The failure of that campaign was formative in my political thinking. We all learned the hard way some simple political truths. Constitutional change is only achieved by working with people from other parties and of no party and that our liberal vision of Home Rule for Scotland within a strong federal United Kingdom is more relevant today than it has ever been. As a teenager growing up ...
Regular readers of my blog will know that I am currently in Washington as part of a review I am undertaking of UCLG the World local government body. As part of this I have had meetings with council leaders and ... Continue reading →
Cornwall Council has started a consultation on a proposal to extend the requirement to pay for parking to all blue badge holders. At present, those who are exempt from road tax can park for free whilst all other blue badge holders receive an extra hour on their parking. The proposal is to bring the tax exempt badge holders into line with others - meaning that they would have to pay, but they would receive an hour for free on top of whatever they paid for. Cabinet member for Transport, Bert Biscoe, has said the following: "Since 2010 car park users ...
[IMG: Lib Dem website screenshot] Want to read the latest news stories and blog posts from the Liberal Democrat federal website but ;want the stories to come to you rather than have to remember to go and check the website regularly for new content? Then my free email service is just what you need. Just sign up for this daily email of Liberal Democrat news here (tick the second box under "What would you like to receive?"). There will be no more than one email a day - and no email if there hasn't been a new story added in ...
[IMG: Tim Clement-Jones in Watford] Far be it from me (or at their peril anyone else!) to ignore an injunction from our General Election Chair Paddy Ashdown, so my New Year's resolution has been to commit every Friday up to the start of the campaign proper to campaigning in a target or held seat. All the polling data shows that we have good prospects in a number of target seats. There was an excellent response and name recognition for Sandy Walkington on my first Friday in St Albans, a constituency I helped in when he first fought it thirty years ...
We'll soon all be getting lots of stuff relating to the forthcoming general election, despite it being well over three moths away! That said, a "business as usual" spending round after May 2015 will not deliver the reforms or sufficient cost savings, so say the think tank IPPR (described as, "Centre-left think tank which is influential [...]
SNP seat, resignation Liberal Democrat candidate- Callum Leslie
Conservative seat, death No Liberal Democrat candidate
The way we register to vote has changed and with the General Election and local elections in May you should make sure you're registered. You can register to vote here - it takes about five minutes. You'll need to have your National Insurance number handy, if you have one. That's all there is to it. The same page has a link to instructions for registering by post, if you prefer this.
I was at a Westminster function last night and a Labour supporter and I got into a discussion about who would win the general election. I told him that, with a heavy heart, I thought the Tories would be the largest party in a hung parliament. He was adamant that I was wrong. "Look at the polls!" he exclaimed. Yes, look at the polls, I told him. The Tories and Labour are pretty much tied. What happens when the "silent Tories" have their say, I asked him. He had never heard of silent Tories as a phenomenon before. That was ...
The UK opinion polls are volatile and extremely difficult to read. it has become a cliche that the next election is both uncertain and very open. The only certainty is that the chances of a hung Parliament seem very high. In fact in the face of such uncertainty I can claim no special knowledge ahead of the result. Yet I think that there are actually some significant shifts which are now on the political agenda. There is still a chance that at the last gasp either the Tories or more likely Labour can snatch a single party mandate under the ...
[IMG: Processed by: Helicon Filter; OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA] It completely slipped my mind on the actual anniversary a fortnight ago, but anyway... January 7th, 2005 was when my first ever blog-post appeared. A further 5,647 posts later I'm still here. That first month, I covered such weighty topics as the Blair/Brown feud, Jerry Springer: The Opera, the ban on smoking in public places (still, thanks to Google search, one of my most-read posts), legalising prostitution, tuition fees, the Great British drinking problem, and Prince Harry's fancy dress Nazi uniform. Not sure if I'll still be scribbling away online in 2025, ...
♡ bless @BRIANBLESSED, who embodies the spirit of The Show Must Go On (tags: ) ICYMI, I posted a very serious poll about @hammerfilms Dracula movies (tags: ) GP Taylor: We've lost the war on drugs, so let's win the peace (tags: ) Poll: which is more important to humanity: Portugal or Facebook? (tags: ) 16 and 17 year olds in England and Wales have every right to be disappointed (tags: ) Voters dismiss 'trickle-down economics' (tags: ) Parity of esteem for mental health, my fellow Lib Dems? We need to do better. (tags: ) in which @iandunt masterfully dissects ...
Frankly, this is one of the main reasons I went into politics and am now seeking to become an MP. It's amendments to legislation such as this that can mark a step change in how we travel around the places we live on a daily basis and the knock-on effects on health, wellbeing, pollution and congestion. The Infrastructure Bill, which will dictate the future direction and spending commitments for infrastructure once it becomes an Act, is nearing its conclusion. CTC, the national cycling charity, along with a number of leading transport groups, is demanding a change from the old ways ...
Move over intemperate letter about a gym, there's a new contender in town for the crown of 'strangest Ukip leaflet ever'. It's from Charnwood and charmingly suggests that people on benefits should be banned from driving so as to free up more road space for everyone else: [IMG: Ukip leaflet on drivers on benefits] (Photo via The Independent.) Of course the minor matter of child benefit means that this policy would ban pretty much every parent from driving... Apparently, says the Ukip leaflet, this is 'common sense'. Or more accurately, it's another example of the inverse relationship between the stridency ...
[IMG: Displaying Jerusalem.jpg] Not content with saving pubs from monopolistic pubcos, Leeds Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland seems to have done more than most to make Jerusalem the English national anthem, with a series of early day motions in Parliament. It is now used by English cricketers and footballers as they dash out onto the pitch. So it is maybe time that people learned a little more about what the song means, and the story of its words and music. Luckily, I've written about it. My ebook Jerusalem is published today at £1.99, and it tells the whole story - ...
Last August, at my request, the council responded to constituents' requests to fill in potholes in the roadway of River Crescent - see right. At the time, I said, given the deteriorated state of the road, it required a more permanent improvement. I am pleased to say that the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership has now advised me that the street is imminently programmed for extensive structural patching.
It has been suggested to me by a local resident that this junction could do with being remodeled to try to stop vehicle drivers, who are tuning left, coming straight out of Sandy Lane onto Lambshear Lane without being able to pass traffic already on Lambshear Lane. The problem seems to be associated with drivers who simply look right and if all seems clear swing straight around the corner. Trouble is the section of Lambshear Lane they are turning onto is effectively single carriageway due to parked cars. This means drivers not looking left can easily (and I am told ...
The Liberal Democrats will pledge to eliminate child illiteracy in England by 2025 if they remain in power after May's general election. Leader Nick Clegg said the coalition had cut illiteracy but added it was a "national scandal" that more than a fifth of 11-year-olds leave primary school without reaching what is regarded as the basic level in reading.
[IMG: Higher Education Bill vote in the House of Commons] I'm sure there are lots of posts I've written in the 10 years I've been blogging that have dated badly. But none so badly as this one published on LibDemVoice in March 2010: '5 reasons Nick Clegg should rule out a coalition now'. I was reminded of it by this week's post on LabourList by Luke Akehurst, 'Labour should rule out forming a coalition with any other party'. Like me five years ago, Luke sets out a number of persuasive reasons why his party should do just that. Like me ...
Who is shocked or even in the least bit surprised that Page 3 of today's edition of The Sun has a woman with her boobs out on it? Anyone...? If you have your arm raised then I'm looking at you very quizzically. You see the newspaper never said that it had dropped the topless photo from its daily editions. They actually went out of their way to say very little on the issue. If they were dropping it then you know what, they would've said it very openly and very loudly for the positive publicity that they would get from ...
