Beware: there are videos like this for many different counties.
Tue 17th
22:19
Layla Moran shows the benefits of the Liberal Democrats drive to deliver 2 million apprenticeships
Liberal Democrat candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon Layla Moran was on Channel 4's political slot tonight talking about apprenticeships. She interviewed apprentices, including Paige McConville, the 2 millionth apprentice. She also interviewed business owners who told her of the high value training apprentices receive and how having apprentices benefits us all as they provide the skills the economy needs to grow. You can watch it here: Nick Clegg talked about launching a lifeboat for a lost generation way before the 2010 election. We've delivered something practical that benefits everyone and given young folk real opportunities. Compare and contrast with ...
[IMG: elephant market] Last weekend, I was walking past the Queen's Hotel in Newbury's Market Place. It's currently surrounded with scaffolding, as they refurbish it. I noticed the letters "EM" and "No.8" painted on the big door. A quick Google failed to reveal the meaning of these letters. But when I got home I found that the "EM" stands for "The Elephant at the Market" which is the new name of the pub/hotel there, set to open in March. That was quite a surprise. An elephant? In the market place? How strange. But not quite that strange. I find that ...
This week for the ordinary person they're probably thinking about half term entertainment or what to give up for lent. For the politicos out there, general election fever is slowly coming to the boil, but what makes thousands of activists give up their free time, and those like me, stand for election? I've had to [...]
Response to the consultation on the Northern Ireland Freedom of Conscience Amendment Bill on behalf of Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats and LGBT+ Liberal Democrats The following is the response of the Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats, which was also endorsed by the UK-wide executive committee of LGBT+ Liberal Democtats on 17th February 2015, to the above...
Lord Bonkers looks at the Liberal Democrats' prospects in a number of seats at the next general election. Today... Westmorland and Lonsdale Some readers, I know, are anxious about the forthcoming election, so let me begin with a seat where we can look forward to it with every confidence. Whilst I suspect Farron of wanting to rip the pews out at St Asquith's and having everyone sing 'Shine, Jesus, Shine' as soon as my back is turned, he remains extraordinarily popular in the Lakes, enjoying a particular following amongst the mint cake workers of Kendal. A definite Liberal Democrat hold ...
[IMG: Labour apprentices record] A good message to share...
[IMG: Nick-Clegg-004] (First, a disclaimer: this is not a prediction of anything that might happen at the general election. I've got no idea what will happen in Sheffield Hallam or any other seat in May, and I'm not making any predictions about what might happen in the election, nationally or locally.) As ever, when actually asked to explain how the systems of British politics works, and not just repeat some juicy gossip, Britain's political columnists have come up short. They can read the constituency polls that say Nick Clegg might lost his seat at the election, but when asked to ...
Suppose you were an arsehole. I know you're not — you read my blog, you're a nice person. But suppose, instead, that you were a vile bigot. And, like many vile bigots sadly are, you're in a position of power and influence over the media. Again, you're not, because otherwise one of you would have [...]
[IMG: Lord George Mackie] Liberal Democrat peer Lord George Mackie died today at the age of 95. As the Herald reports: A famous Liberal Democrat peer Lord Mackie of Benshie has died aged 95, a decorated airman with Bomber Command in the second world war as well as a renowned farmer. He was a chairman of the Caithness Glass company and a hotelier at John O, Groats.After the war he took over a farm at Benshie in Angus and subsequently set up a cattle ranch at Braeroy near Spean Bridge. George Mackie, from a renowned farming family in Aberdeenshire, was ...
The Huddersfield Daily Examiner reports: [IMG: Zulfiqar Ali] A self-employed businessman has been chosen as a parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Huddersfield. Zulfiqar Ali will contest the Huddersfield seat at May's general election for the party. He has lived in Birkby for over 20 years and has two children at Royds Hall Community School. Zulfiqar says he will be campaigning to protect the services at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary - particularly the Maternity Unit and Accident and Emergency Services. He also highlighted the positive steps taken by his party in government, including the Pupil Premium and £8bn for the ...
LDHQ have launched a bulk buy deal for the next Addressed Switch A5 Mailing. The templates for this item can be found here. More details about the deal, including guide prices, can be found on the order form. The time frame for ordering the Addressed Switch A5 Mailing is as follows: Addressed Switch A5 Mailing Sign Up Deadline: 20th February 2015 Artwork Upload Deadline: 27th February 2015 Data Transfer Deadline: 27th February 2015 Delivery Date: w/c 9th March 2015 If you wish to order the Addressed Switch A5 Mailing please complete the sign up form below. As always, please be ...
Sad news today. Lord Mackie of Benshie - farmer, war hero, Liberal MP and peer - has died at the age of 95. As his Guardian obituary says: The whole of his life had been coloured by the war, and like many other participants in that terrible conflict, the experience made him a passionate believer in European unity. Much of his political life was devoted to that idealistic concept, including membership of the Council of Europe and a brief spell in the European parliament before it became a directly elected body. He spent many years on House of Lords committees ...
[IMG: children-playing-300x168] It's time for parents with children born between 1 September 2011 and 31 August 2012 to apply for a nursery place. The online nursery application system for 2015-16 opened on Monday 9 February. Hertfordshire County Council hosts an online application system atwww.hertsdirect.org/nurseryadmissions for parents to apply for a place at a nursery school or class. You can state which nursery you would most prefer and the days you would like your child to attend. Parents should apply for a place at a nursery school or class online by Friday 20 March. A leaflet, Applying for a school nursery ...
LDHQ have released their Election Communication templates for those doing "Splits". You can find the templates here. Please remember that these should always be localised as much as possible. Envelopes All the C5 envelopes are now manila. All the DL envelopes are now white gummed and oversized window envelopesand would need to be overprinted with 'Election Communication' in a royal mail approved format. If they are to be machine stuffed make sure they will work with the machine you are using.If they are handstuffed make sure your clerical help is securely tucking in the flaps or using sponges to moisten ...
... I've already asked this on twitter, but the blog is a bit less ephemeral: I am trying to expand my network on twitter because my default playlist at work has become the "What everyone in your network is listening to" list, and given that I work 5 days a week I need a reasonably broad network for that not to get samey. If you're an active spotify user, would you mind dropping your user name in a comment? If we look like we intersect somewhat on taste or you look interesting I'll add you (my tastes are reasonably catholic, ...
Tue 17th
16:13
I was not aware I lived under an area of land that is the migratory territory to a herd of Wilderbea...
via Facebook
Friends of Chase Park in Whickham, with the help of Gateshead Council, have been developing a bid for £1 million of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The bid is due to be submitted in early March. If successful, it would be a fantastic boost to the park and to Whickham generally. If the bid is successful it would result in new features including: WiFi capability in areas of the park
Chinese New Year will be celebrated by communities across the country from Wednesday 18th February until 3rd March. Our friends at Lib Dem HQ have put together a short message and template press release for any local campaigners who might wish to use them. Note: Stylings can vary, with some communities preferring 'Sheep' or 'Ram', rather than Goat. You can find some more information on these distinctions here and here. If you are active in an area with a community that predominantly prefers one form over another (e.g. a Vietnamese or Korean community), it would be useful to consider adapting ...
Local Election Nomination Papers The 2015 Electoral Commission Local election nomination papers have been published and are available to download Principal Councils here Parish, Town and Community councils here Instructions on how to complete them are available here Numbers removed from ballot papers The law has recently changed to remove the consecutive numbering of candidates' names which used to appear down the left hand side in parliamentary elections ballots papers as well for local council ballot papers in England and Wales. Featuring the numbers next to candidate names used to be a regular part of last minute Get Out The ...
Present Claire Hudson, Simon Allen, Veronica German, Chris White, Lucy Nethsengha, Isobel McCall, Christine Tinker, Steve Hitchens, Kath Pinnock, Hannah Kaitlin Boyer, Paul Clarke, Willie Wilson, Mike Ward (by FaceTime), Anders Hanson (Staff Rep), Tim Pickstone (Chief Executive) Apologies Heather Kidd, Anood Al-Samerai, Richard Ormerod, Jeanette Sunderland Declarations of Interest Steve Hitchens declared he undertook contract work with ALDC on the LGA Be a Councillor Project Minutes of the Management Committee 7 September 2015 Agreed as a correct record Minutes of the Management Committee 30 November 2015 – Paul Clark – add to Governance Sub Committee – Amend Mike Boad ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe:
[IMG: Team 2015 poster] I'm looking forward to the election with a fair amount of optimism. My response to disappointing election results in May 2014 was to join Team 2015, which in August had just begun to mobilise Lib Dem volunteers in preparation for the General Election. At this point the Team membership's infectious enthusiasm far outweighed its numbers. It has since grown to include volunteers from across the country, and this has shaped my belief that we have a chance to do better in the election than critics and pollsters are anticipating. This might seem naively sanguine on my ...
[IMG: vote for nobody 2] During my time as both politician and internet pontificator, I have thought hard on the subject of elections and how to win them and thought it was time I shared my experience with the world. In the spirit of openness, I do not direct this at any leader in particular, but hope all will see it, follow it and we'll have a better politics as a result. I have boiled down my mountains of wisdom into just five points that cover everything. 1) Promise things that I want: Your party has lots of policies. Lots ...
Back in 2001, I published a book called The Tyranny of Numbers. It seemed like a new, rather tentative argument at the time, but the Blair government had formulated over 10,000 numerical targets over the previous four years and the growth of counting as an instrument of - well, pretty much everything - had not really been covered much at that stage. I've been thinking quite deeply about these issues again, and especially after hearing a deeply frustrating discussion on the BBC Today programme involving the education editor of the Economist who had just made a controversial lecture. The upshot ...
On Sunday night, Stephen Tall and I were on the Westminster Hour discussing the party's prospects for the coming election and beyond. You can listen to the whole thing here. They also have a shorter clip of Stephen talking about the dilemma facing the party about portraying itself as a "split the difference" party. He rightly said that concern about it is something that unites activists on both sides of the party but on the other hand we aren't going to win the election outright so we have to claim the centre ground between the other two. In my contribution ...
According to an ICM national opinion poll in today's Guardian, UKIP (on 9%) has fallen behind the Liberal Democrats (on 10%) for the first time in a long while, Of course one must not make too much of one individual poll, especially as this may just be an outlier — a rogue poll that is [...]
One more round of changes has been made to election law ahead of May's elections, bringing the rules for local election ballot papers in line with the revised rules for general election ballot papers that I covered in Three changes to election law coming along for May. That trio of changes included removing the consecutive numbering of candidates' names which used to appear down the left hand side. Now the numbering has been removed from local council ballot papers in England and Wales too, courtesy of The Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2015 and The Local ...
Lancashire county councillor David Whipp has won the World Meat Pie championship, which travelled this year all the way to Barnoldswick, Lancashire. Winning a world meat pie contest with a vegetarian pie is simply out of this world. All the newsanimals here at Liberal Democrat Voice Towers are licking their paws in tribute. Well done David. More details can be found in the Lanchashire Telegraph. His vegetarian cheese and onion recipe won the judges' praises after an anonymous taste test during the February Feast: Love Food, Love Barnoldswick event in the town square on Saturday. And his secret ingredient? "Lots ...
Liberal values are under attack by people happy to use violence to stop their advance. Two main groups of attackers have emerged: various flavours of Islamic extremism, and Vladimir Putin's Russia. This onslaught is causing stress for traditional liberals. We are used to dealing with constitutional opponents: from the collectivist ideas of the left to the social conservatism of the right. But these opponents play by a set of rules which, though they include some manipulation of the media, by and large do not involve killing people. The debate is engaged on liberal terms and settled democratically. But what happens ...
I received a copy of the Conservatives pre-election leaflet claiming to introduce your "local candidate" for the North West Durham Constituency. "Charlotte ..... of Shotley Bridge" it claims. Coyly it mentions that she is a councillor in a unitary authority. It doesn't say which one. In fact it's Wokingham in Berkshire, 285 miles from Willington at the southern end of North West Durham constituency. Some would say the gap between Wokingham and Willington is wider than that. Many people won't mind where their party's candidate comes from. They vote for the party and not the person. That's fine by me. ...
An ICM poll came out yesterday. It revealed that, by a canter, the NHS is still the biggest concern British voters have. It is ranked top by 31% of voters – the next one down, jobs, prices and wages, is put as the chief priority by 17%. This should be a huge bonus for Labour given the NHS is the terrain they wish to run the election campaign on. Yet in the same poll, the Conservatives are ahead of Labour by four points. Now, I'll say right here that of course the two aren't directly related. The four point Tory ...
Next month, the Israeli Prime Minister will address the American Congress. It is not hard to guess the essence what he will say. As the Atlantic's foreign affairs editor, James Fallows, observes his message regarding Iran almost invariably turns on a single metaphor: Iran as the Third Reich and the present day as 1938. Fallows [...]
In ten years time, all the Clegg hatred of the last five years will seem bizarre and incomprehensible (tags: ) Embiggening English: The Simpsons and changing language (tags: ) Fifty Shades of Socialist Feminism - this made me LOL is this the point where I talk about getting lovers to quote Mill at me...? ;) (tags: ) Sensitive personal data exposed in Open Datasets (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
[IMG: Vaccine injection] Over on Vox, there's an excellent piece about the difficulties of rebutting anti-vaccine scares: I called Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth who specializes in the sometimes magical thinking people have in politics and health care. In a study on perceptions of flu shots, he found correcting myths had the opposite of the desired effect on the most vaccine-skeptical among us. In another study on the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, he found that myth-busting actually increased some parents' wariness about the shot. In his political research, he has demonstrated that giving people corrective information can deepen ...
The news last week from the BIS that the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) will receive a further £300 million in funding can only be celebrated by Liberal Democrat activists. Launched by Nick Clegg back in 2010, the fund was designed to help regional businesses grow and strengthen local economies. In the run up to the upcoming elections, local businesses need to be reminded of the funding available to them, now in its sixth round, which the Liberal Democrats have secured in government. So far almost £3 billion has been invested in regional companies through the RGF, helping them to expand ...
Subscribers to Liberator should have received or be about to receive issue 370 of the radical liberal magazine Liberator. Initial feedback has been strikingly positive. Aside from the regular features including RB and Lord Bonkers' Diary, the magazine includes a range of perspectives on the coalition experience as it draws to a close. Michael Meadowcroft gives an insiders' view on the life and leadership of Jeremy Thorpe which as Tony Greaves puts it 'is in itself worth the sub and a good counter to a lot of the spin and nonsense that has been written since he died about his ...
I have expressed concern at the loss of funding for the Hear to Help Project in Dundee. Run by Action on Hearing Loss Scotland, it has provided help for people to maintain and use their hearing aids in recent years. I visited a drop-in session at Blackness Library last year and was extremely impressed with what the project provides for local people. I am very concerned indeed to learn that the funding for the above project is not being renewed. I feel it is a great service as many elderly constituents in particular are able to get some support to ...
Firstly on Labour's proposals for another NHS reorganisation. Secondly on whether there is a role for buying in services.
[IMG: streetlight off] "Street light repairs across Hertfordshire are managed in a way that would make the Mad Hatter look organised. "Liberal Democrat County Councillors have been receiving emails stating that street lights would be repaired within 4 weeks when they knew full well that in a significant number of cases repairs had not been completed after 12 weeks or more.After an email exchange between Lib Dem County Councillor Chris White (St Albans Central) and Herts County Council, it has become clear that the published 20 working day repair claims only applies to minor roads – and then not always. ...
The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above:- What have I been saying over and over again? Frankly, I am not encouraged by the reassurance that things are getting better or is that less worse.
So yesterday the Shadow Chancellor demanded that people should demand receipts from tradesmen to stop tax avoidance: Amid growing disarray at the highest levels of Labour Party, the Shadow Chancellor said that asking for a receipt was "the right thing" to do and added that he would crack down on "aggressive tax avoidance" if Labour won the election in May. "I think the right thing to do if you are having somebody cut your hedge for a tenner is to make sure that they give you their name and address and receipt so there's a record that you paid them," ...
Street light repairs across Hertfordshire are managed in a way that would make the Mad Hatter look organised. Liberal Democrat County Councillors have been receiving emails stating that street lights would be repaired within 4 weeks when they knew full well that in a significant number of cases repairs had not been completed after 12 [...]
