Well, I'd never seen The Last Leg before. I'll be watching it again, though. It was very, very funny. And it's not only trending on Twitter in the UK, it's number 3 in the World. There are two contradictory truths about Nick Clegg's appearance on the show. His natural manner and willingness to engage in the banter while holding on (just) to his dignity has won him a lot of friends but I predict acres of snooty, disapproving newsprint tomorrow from people using words like "unbecoming for a Deputy Prime Minister." Quentin Letts will probably have worked himself up into ...
Yes tomorrow it may be cold, but a lot of us are assembling at 2pm in Derry/Londonderry 3pm in Belfast and Newry to make our feelings heard about Paul Givan's DUP sponsored "private" member's bill that is currently out to consultation that seeks to rip apart the equality act. It is a protest against the so called "conscience clause" from a party that has no conscience. This Thursday we heard a DUP health minister tell BBC's The View that he would have to look at expert opinion on the number of hospitals that Northern Ireland needs. This is the same ...
This is going to be a confused mess. I've not actually had an uninterrupted night's sleep — even by my own standards where "a night's sleep" means five hours if I'm lucky — in eleven days, so I'm in a weird fugue state at the moment where I'm seeing patterns in everything but can't tell [...]
[IMG: image] Above: the pharmacist from Doc Martin, Mrs Tishell played by Selina Cadell. [IMG: image] Above: Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions
In the course of an upbeat assessment of the Liberal Democrats' chances in the coming general election, Andrew Grice reveals what must surely be our campaign slogan: "Labour will screw the economy, the Tories will screw you."Grice attributes it to an "influential Liberal Democrat". I have asked Lord Bonkers, but he assures me it did not come from him.
Yesterday evening, Lindsay and I went the the book launch of I'll See Myself Out, Thank You, an anthology of short pieces about assisted dying by a range of candidates, carers, relatives and professionals in favour of changes in the law, some wanting to go further than the current Assisted Dying Bill. There was also a showing of the video Glenn's Last Tape, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RXQLF9uTL0) about the last months of Glenn Scott, who died by his own hand of Motor Neurone Disease after a year of progressive deterioration.the inevitable course of the disease. He had the resources, the intelligence and the ...
Last August I set out some of the policies which I think ought to be in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, and earlier this month took a critical look at the six key themes on which the Tories have chosen to fight. Now with fewer than 100 days to go, here's my suggestion for the six key themes which would offer the electorate a real alternative to the counter-productive "austerity heavy" or "austerity light" on offer from the Tories and Labour. 1. More real jobs, especially for the young, through growth stimulated by Keynesian public works in the maintenance and improvement ...
Here are a couple of new Minion video to make you chuckle. Here they are watching the Super Bowl: And here are some more shots from the upcoming film:Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Cinema, Films, Minions, movies, The Minions
The country is going through a painful and difficult adjustment as we seek to rebalance our economy. For politicians to make the case about being underpaid is inappropriate given the sacrifices being asked of the British public and its work force. Let's not forget it is because of the actions of the last Labour government that the country is in the state it finds itself in. How anyone can therefore justify that politicians should be entitled to a larger salary is beyond me. Regardless of whether they caused the crash or are fixing the mess, it is outrageous to think ...
Good news about the state of the NHS: 65% of public are satisfied with the NHS, new British Social Attitudes survey finds pic.twitter.com/Q3jo6W3OcI — NatCen (@NatCen) January 29, 2015 It's one reason why Labour's attempts to make the NHS the deciding issue of the general election are struggling so much: they are out of tune with what the public thinks about the NHS. Problems such as Ed Miliband's crude cynicism over "weaponising" the NHS and Andy Burnham's car crash interview when faced with the inconvenient fact that the Labour government he served in outsourced to the private sector more health ...
Fri 30th
16:17
Labour candidate: I asked myself to support myself; I support myself and have supported myself from ...
Oh, where have I heard of this Mark Walker before? On her own website, Katherine tells us, in an update published by one "Mark" on 31st December (well there's always a lull between Christmas and New Year): "It's been great to be asked to support the Hertfordshire Passenger Power campaign" It just seems rather disingenuous to me (the lack any actual policies to stop the tickets being £lots notwithstanding). Having said all that, when I animatedly told Mrs. L all this, her reaction was: "meh".
[IMG: andrew george] Andrew George, Lib Dem MP for St Ives, has been writing for The Cornishman on renewable energy in the county. I consistently pressed for Cornwall to become the 'Green Peninsula' - the UK exemplar for environmental policy, renewables and energy security - coining the phrase in an economic strategy paper for Cornwall 'Rediscovering our distinctiveness' in 1998. I'm pleased that Cornwall has made good progress, but there's still more to do. Cornwall now has thousands more jobs and millions of pounds more in turnover and is exporting its know-how and talents worldwide, in geothermal, offshore renewables infrastructure, ...
ALDC is pleased to be able to offer our members £50 off a fully managed Royal Mail Election Communication (also known as the freepost) for the General Election – a saving that is more than the annual standard ALDC membership fee. The election freepost is offered to all parliamentary candidates at UK elections, so that [...]
[IMG: ALDC Master Logo (for screen)] This week once again saw two principal council by-elections. On Wednesday, the Conservatives held one of their two seats in Purley-on-Thames ward in West Berkshire (UA), with their candidate polling 68.1% to take victory with a comfortable majority of 764 votes. Liberal Democrat candidate Steve Brown finished fourth with 7.6% of the vote. Two seats were available in yesterday's by-election in the St Albans (DC) ward of Marshalwick South. The Conservatives held on to both seats with their two candidates collectively averaging 33.5% of the vote. Lib Dem candidates Mark Pedroz and Elizabeth Needham ...
Blyth Town Council is examining the list of buildings of historic or architectural interest in Blyth. These are not the listed buildings in Blyth, but those buildings that have features, or a history , that need to be retained and protected if ever there is a need. I will be suggesting a couple of additions, and the council will be consulting on the results in due course, but if there are any buildings that you think should be included in the list please let me know, either by email or by comment against this post..( before 15th February please ) ...
[IMG: Monaco] Usually for headline summaries, net figures are much better than gross figures. To understand the jobs market, for example, the net change in the number of jobs is a much more useful headline than the number of jobs created on its own or the number of jobs lost on its own. Sure, often you need to know both those further statistics to then understand what is causing the headline, but if you want a simple summary, just talking about one without the other is apt. That's why, at first glance, the statistic recently doing the rounds (and particularly ...
[IMG: last-leg204] Nick Clegg will be appearing on The Last Leg at 10pm on Channel 4 this evening. I will certainly be watching – in fact, I have been a fan of the programme since it first appeared during the 2012 Paralympics. After tiring but exhilarating days spent working as a Gamesmaker, it was great to flop down and watch this totally refreshing and irreverent take on the day's events with disability at its heart. It cleared away a lot of misconceptions through its #isitok feature and the regular joshing between the three presenters, two of whom have prosthetic legs. ...
I have recently purchased copies of some really good old photo's from the National Railway Museum's collection in York. 3 of them relate to Aintree and here they are:- [IMG: Aintree Coal sidings - April 1911] Aintree Coal sidings – April 1911 [IMG: Aintree Racecourse Station - 1912] Aintree Racecourse Station – 1912 [IMG: Aintree Sefton Arms Station - April 1913] Aintree Sefton Arms Station – April 1913 The photos are amongst my Flickr shots at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/
MARSHALSWICK SOUTH, Thur 29th Jan, 2015. Two vacancies and two candidates stood per party. Votes totalled. Compared to most recent election (May 2014) with one vacancy and one candidate per party. Conservative......1314...33.5%...(Down 5.1%) Lib Democrats......983...25.0%...( Up 5.7%) Labour.................718...18.3%...(Down 4.4%) Greens................616...15.7%...( Up 5.5%) UKIP....................295.....7.5%...(Down 1.7%) Ah, UKIP. Remember them? Not a lot to say really, except perhaps, "Bye, bye, Nigel – and thanks for all the laughs!"
A Carmarthen traffic warden is being investigated after giving a £30 ticket to a wheelie bin because it was parked on double yellow lines. John McEvoy, Carmarthenshire Council's traffic and safety manager, said: "Although this was meant as a humorous incident, we take this kind of thing very seriously." The Daily Telegraph & The Times ran this article. Goodness knows what punishment Eric Pickles would want to hand out to the 'owner' of the bin. By the way did you see him being interviewed on the TV recently in connection with litter bringing down house prices? All he was able ...
In the run up to the 2010 general election there was a strand of punditry chatter about how it would be a good election to lose, because the cuts which any government would introduce (and remember Labour's Chancellor, Alistair Darling, was talking about Labour making bigger cuts than Thatcher) would be so politically painful that being in opposition for a term of office would work out best for a party. This sort of clever-clever win-by-losing argument often pops up in politics and its real weakness is illustrated by its timing. It makes its showing on the punditry stage before, rather ...
This week once again saw two principal council by-elections. On Wednesday, the Conservatives held one of their two seats in Purley-on-Thames ward in West Berkshire (UA), with their candidate polling 68.1% to take victory with a comfortable majority of 764 votes. Liberal Democrat candidate Steve Brown finished fourth with 7.6%. Two seats were available in [...]
[IMG: yellow door ppb] So then, we all saw it, did we? The starting gun for the Liberal Democrats election campaign was well and truly fired on Wednesday with the airing of three different versions of a very similar Party Political Broadcast. 'Open Doors' puts a focus on the LibDems as a campaigning force, but importantly for me, it also makes a very clear point about how we operate as a party - we listen to our communities, and we work with them to achieve change. Rather than it being Nick standing around eulogising about our policies, or mooching around ...
I was surprised given the Green Party's opposition to Fracking that Caroline Lucas did not vote against the Infrastructure Bill on Monday evening. The point about the infrastructure bill is that although there was no specific vote as to whether or not to change the laws on trespass for Geothermal Energy and Fracking, there was an opportunity to oppose the bill as a whole. The Bill did include
The FT have a useful information page which gives the 10 year interest rate on government debt. The rates are particularly low in the Eurozone apart from Greece at the moment. The UK is also particularly low. I will extract the current figures for future reference: Ten year government bond spreads Country Latest yield Spread vs bund Spread vs T-bonds Australia 2.43%+2.08+0.70
An extra £40m for synthetic biology research in the UK comes with support to encourage responsible innovation. Social media analysis offers a heads up on new research ideas and potential public concerns UK's business secretary Vince Cable was at the University of Manchester on Thursday to announce £40m in new research funding for synthetic biology, including £32m for Synthetic Biology Research Centres (SBRCs) in Manchester, Edinburgh, and Warwick. This is another major boost for synthetic biology research, joining three other SBRCs in Bristol, Cambridge, and Nottingham and a Synthetic Biology Innovation and Knowledge Centre at Imperial College London set up ...
Nibley Lane will be closed from its junction with Badminton Road for a distance of 120m south towards Westerleigh for 10 days from 9 February 2015. This is to enable cables and ducts to be laid. So during that time drivers will not be able to use this popular cut-through. there will only be access to the properties on Nibley Lane itself.
Fri 30th
09:34
Is the Daily Mail correct in asserting that Tim Farron is "unstoppable" in his bid to be next leader...
I should begin this piece by saying that if you are looking for reliable information on what's going inside of the Lib Dems, the Daily Mail is not the best place to initiate your search. However, yesterday there was an article in said publication that declared the next leadership contest within the party done and dusted, merely a coronation for the Rt Hon Farron. Granted, it did mention in the headline that Tim would be leader following a "Lib Dem election wipeout" that the article takes as a given. In fact thinking about it just a little bit, that was ...
Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention this week... BBC News – University applications hit record high Damn the deterrent effect of those tuition fees... BBC News – University applications hit record high http://bbc.in/16377iT Foreign pupils don't harm grades of English speakers – Education News – Education – The Independent New @UniofOxford study finds: "Foreign pupils don't harm grades of English speakers" http://ind.pn/1DmB1sN The real victims of this government's changes to tuition fees have been forgotten / @timwig right to say focus tuition fees reform at boosting part-time students http://bit.ly/1LlT3ks GCSE data: poorer children falling further behind ...
MoJ admits losing inquiry data discs (tags: ) Some thoughts on consent and empathy - really REALLY interesting post by @elmyra (tags: ) Oh God. I've spent SO long defending the BBC and then they do this. (tags: ) The rules on beards in the British armed forces are unnecessarily complicated. (tags: ) On the gendered nature of obituary columns (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
As reported in both the Evening Telegraph and the Courier, I have submitted draft proposals to council officers that would seek to remove some of the worst of the budget cuts the Dundee SNP administration proposes to make. These SNP cuts include a reduction in street cleaning services, the closure of the Victoria Park bowling green and Baxter Park bowling green, closing the DUN.C.A.N. anti-crime project and the highly controversial SNP proposals to restructure the Young Mum's Unit at Menzieshill High School. I am keen to see the worst of the SNP cuts being rejected and have looked to find ...
[IMG: Belgrade LGBT training] In the run-up to Christmas, the International Office worked with liberal sister-parties in Serbia and Bosnia to promote LGBT and women's rights across the Balkan region. In early December, I travelled to Belgrade with Ed Fordham, a leading Lib Dem LGBT campaigner, to meet with our sister-party, the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP). With our support, the LDP has set up a Human Rights Council modelled on the Lib Dem LGBT+ Group, as a champion of the LGBT community in Serbia. Ed and I held a workshop with representatives of the Human Rights Council to hear about ...
Further to my article on 15th January about the X7 hospital bus service, my Perth & Kinross Council colleague Cllr Willie Wilson and I have now met with Stagecoach about the issues affecting the service - mainly related to the bus type used. This has been reported in the Courier and the Evening Telegraph. I reproduce below the news release issued to update constituents about the outcomes from what was a productive meeting :Following a meeting held in Perth on Thursday, 22 January 2015, some positive outcomes have been agreed between Perth & Kinross Council, Dundee City Council and Stagecoach ...
Last week, the City Archivist kindly shared with me (in relation to a public enquiry) the PDF of a fascinating election address from Sir Winston Churchill's ill-fated 1922 election campaign in Dundee. With the permission of Local History at the Central Library, it seems very fitting to feature this today - the 50th anniversary of Churchill's state funeral. You can download the full leaflet here.
This time it's a would-be Parliamentary candidate Mark Walker who has been dumped in Bromsgrove after spreading racism online: A would-be UKIP candidate for Bromsgrove has been ruled out of the running after sharing a rant branding mixed-race couples a "plague"... Originally published by UK-based far-right group Western Spring, it said relationships between races "amount to genocide" and slammed the "plague of inter-racial marriage." Walker published and 'liked' a link to the mixed race article on his UKIP Facebook page on January 10. The post was accompanied by the message: "Please share far and wide". Days later the wannabe MP, ...
When you have a divided group it does not always pay to table a motion to the Welsh Assembly on the issue that divides you. However, that is precisely what the Welsh Conservatives did last week when the initiated a debate on the M4 extension around Newport. The results were predictable. The Western Mail reports that the differences between Tory AMs over the M4 Relief Road led to a public spat on social media, with one accusing another of sending spoof tweets. The paper says that the Welsh Tories claim their position on the motorway is clear after all its ...
Pipistrelle Court is located off Church Street, opposite the Three Horse Shoes. It's also got a well used footpath through to Ainsdale Drive. A year ago, as reported in The Telegraph, a woman was pushed to the ground by the thief who also grabbed her handbag. According to the report, the attack to place as the [...]
I could imagine that arriving in a strange city at 6.35 a.m. could be quite stressful, especially one that assaults the senses as Delhi does, with its noise and its poverty. And, even though I am a relatively seasoned traveller, particularly in India, a sleepless night on an aeroplane is not the ideal way to start a trip. Having booked a hotel some way from the airport, and not being too keen on local taxis - let's just say that the traffic is diabolical, the driving slightly worse - I had decided to try the Metro system, something the locals ...
Monitor, the UK Health Regulator, have stepped in to fix the financial problems at Halifax & Huddersfield Hospitals. This is a very welcome development, as the Hospitals are truly struggling under the burden of their debts. Calderdale Royal Hospital in particular has been crushed by the crippling burden of its PFI debt since reconstruction in 2001. The initial cost of the construction was £64m, but the total cost repaid by the NHS will eventually reach £774m over the repayment period (the Hospital has already repaid more than the initial cost of construction). Labour's PFI deals on the NHS have already ...
