By 1968, a lot of people were getting sick of progress and psychedelia. The music they'd grown up with was straightforward blues, R&B, and rock and roll, and there was no need in their mind for all the mellotrons, harpsichords, and songs about incense and flowers, when you could have straight-ahead no-nonsense boogie. Two people [...]
Back in January I suggested that the results of May's general election might not be more boring than a lot of people expect. To an extent I was right. The Green surge seems to have come and gone, while no one now expects Ukip to win more than a meagre handful of seats. However, the prospect of an SNP landslide now seems stronger than it did at the start of the year. I based my scepticism then in part upon an analysis by Iain Dale, who had looked at each constituency and then made a forecast. In January he wrote: ...
Dorothy Thorhill's campaign for Watford was launched tonight with this great video: Meanwhile here's Lynne Featherstone's new video about her work against FGM: Ofcom has decided to classify Ukip as a major party and the Greens as a minor party in handing out party election broadcast slots. In Liberal Democrat Newswire #57 I reported on Sal Brinton stepping down from the Lib Dem negotiating team for a hung Parliament thanks to being elected President. Her replacement has now been announced: Baroness (Kate) Parminter to replace Lib Dem president Sal Brinton in the party's 5-person post-election Coalition negotiation team — Michael ...
Paddy Ashdown gave Tim Farron both barrels yesterday. I think it was justified, but there it stops. I believe Tim has now probably learnt his lesson regarding media interviews. There is no need for any more public chastening of Tim. Despite this episode, Tim has provided crucial cover for the party and been an excellent President. So, Nick Clegg needs to show some real leadership. Stop these ridiculous briefings by "source close to Nick Clegg". Why not just try talking to Tim, Nick? Today's briefing with reference to Sarah Palin is just disgraceful. This "source close to Nick Clegg" is ...
Here's the new film from the Electoral Commission: I rather like the stunt the Electoral Commission pulled on its own staff to communicate the campaign: Last week staff at the Commission walked in to find signs on their computers saying 'You can't use a PC today'. I'm an early starter so I spent the first hour of my day suggesting people should turn over the sign to find a message which explained what was really going on. But until they did this people were unsurprisingly not happy and in many cases quite confused - they couldn't understand what the problem ...
I have a lot of time for Tim Farron. His William Beveridge Lecture to last year's Social Liberal Forum Conference was just what I needed to hear at a time when my faith in the Party was at its lowest ebb. It re-engaged me in a way that I would have thought impossible prior to that speech. It was certainly what I needed to hear at the time, and it had a hugely positive impact on my morale. It is easy to see why Tim is being talked about as a future leader. He has an uncanny ability to enthuse ...
Tim Farron, Kevin White and Kate Hudson Lib Dems Against Trident, formed last year to advocate opposition to Trident and a like-for-like replacement, organised a fringe meeting at Spring Conference - at which the guest speakers were Kate Hudson (CND Chair) and Tim Farron MP. Kevin White, the founder of Lib Dems Against Trident opened the meeting, which was well attended. He emphasised the group's aim to ensure a motion on Trident is debated at federal conference in Bournemouth later this year and added that, while much will depend on the outcome of the General Election, two draft motions had ...
You'll need to buy a ticket for the Easter egg hunt – tickets available at the cafe. [IMG: abney]
For some reason everyone is being beastly to Grant Shapps today. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he threatened a constituent with legal action for telling the truth about him? But I hope he will cheer up when he hears that he features in this blog's Trivial Fact of the Day. Because, according to the New Statesman's eight weirdest things about Grant Shapps, he and Mick Jones of the Clash are cousins.
On Sunday I posted a video of the demolition of Greyfriars bus station, Northampton - known affectionately to locals as "the mouth of Hell". I have now come across this superb footage, which was shot by the demolition contractors themselves.
We have asked for the sign to be repaired
Local residents will no doubt be happy to learn that a planning application (15/00163/ful) to erect 2x 3 bed, 2x 4 bed and 1x 5 bed dwellings and access from Gunthorpe Road, at 20 Gunthorpe Road and land to the rear, has now been withdrawn. Details of the application can be seen by clicking here! [...]
Progress continues with the delivery of our tabloid. As of Saturday, when I had escaped to conference, most of the remaining patches in the Whickham part of my ward, had been delivered. A team came in to finish off those areas where we don't already have a regular deliverer. I understand one patch is left to do. This is a much cheaper way to deliver leaflets than that employed by Labour. They
On Sunday afternoon I had the honour of attending the induction of Rabbi Chanan and Rebbetzen Nechama Atlas at the Yeshurun Synagogue. The Yeshurun is a Modern Orthodox synagogue at the junction of Gatley Road and Kingsway in Gatley, and a place where I have always received a warm and friendly welcome. [IMG: Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis] Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis The induction of a new Rabbi and Rebbetzen was led by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who I was very pleased to welcome to Stockport. The Chief Rabbi is a warm, funny and engaging speaker – clearly a great asset ...
The Liberal Democrats'spring conference was held over the weekend and for the first time in two years I was attending for the whole of it. I did have an editorial meeting of Parliamentary Campaigner to attend and photos to take for candidates to use in their literature but I wasn't running photo ops. That activity has now been passed on to others and instead, I was one of the people having my
[IMG: Tim Farron speaking - Some rights reserved by Liberal Democrats] Just before conference Tim Farron posted on Huffington Post on a totally different subject – Conservative foreign policy. He writes: The Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the deterioration of human rights in Russia should be a key concern of all our political parties. If we are to stem the violence in Ukraine, we need a strong and united Europe, as much as we need wise thinking from the US and other players. But I am concerned that the Conservative leadership is crippled by an overblown and insecure fear of Ukip. We ...
I wasn't at Liberal Democrat Conference last weekend, because I had a much more relaxing and stress-relieving weekend away booked instead, but it seems that the Conference was used to make a major declaration: we're now in Farron season. Yes, those who've been waiting for months, even years, to begin having a go at the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale have been given official sanction to do so by Paddy Ashdown. (And yes, in a week where the media's been filled with the elder statesman of Top Gear being suspended for punching someone, it seems it's still all right for ...
Freedom of expression: http://youtu.be/o9rM6BKAGss The Leader's speech:
At a dinner in London last week to celebrate David Steel's 50 years in Parliament Nick Clegg congratulated David on his internationalism and talked at length about the importance of our Party being the champion of internationalism and human rights. In his final conference speech Nick said "we will stand up for tolerance, decency and fairness" but this was put in a domestic context. Hopefully we will soon hear an election speech from Nick offering a Lib Dem foreign policy that will clearly differentiate us from the Tories and from the policies of the Blair/Brown years. This is the speech ...
The extraordinary public attack on Tim Farron and his judgment by the Liberal Democrats' General Election Chair Paddy Ashdown was viewed with raised eyebrows by those who remembered his desperate attempts to pursue "The Project" with Tony Blair in 1997-8. This has quickly been followed by an orchestrated attack on Farron in today's Times [paywalled] after a pretty innocuous piece in the Mail on Sunday. Meanwhile a lot of people have been working to generate publicity for Norman Lamb after the intrusive tabloid piece about his family members yesterday. Lamb appears to have handled this very well, gaining momentum for ...
The recent Frome Vale Area Forum decided to give Community Grants to a range of local sporting organisations. These grants were aimed at providing sporting oportunities for local young people. Dodington football tournaments £2730 Dodington Parish Council has been running football tournaments for 7 to 11 year old boys and girls at QE2 Playing Fields, Kelston Close since 2009. There are two tournaments in each of the Easter, May, October and February half terms - 8 days of free sporting fun for local youngsters, led by professional coaches. King Edmund Acrogymnastics £3000 The number of young people involved in this ...
ALDC launched our Election Law Helpline service for the Party in December last year. The Helpline will run throughout the 2015 election period. It is vital that everyone in the party stays on the right side of the law throughout the campaign, and we'll be here to help you do this. To avoid getting into [...]
It's taken some quite lengthy and detailed debate in the Liberal Democrats to come up with a fully-costed way to give the NHS in England the extra £8bn a year* it needs by 2020. When we managed it, I expected it to be a good policy but also one that didn't give the party much political advantage as surely the other parties would also match the call from NHS England's Chief Executive for this sum? Turns out no. Not only not the Tories, but not Labour either: Labour and the Conservatives have rejected a plea from doctors' leaders to "put ...
Mon 16th
12:29
Lib Dem Spring Conference: Members setting priorities for mental health, tackling climate change, fa...
I am just back from the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in Liverpool where I was very proud to have a hand in voting through key policy motions that set out the Liberal Democrat vision for the future. The first was the call for greater investment in and parity of status for mental health care. Very [...]
[IMG: Kate Parminter] About a year ago, Nick Clegg announced that the members of the post-election negotiating team would be Danny Alexander, Steve Webb, Sal Brinton, Lynne Featherstone and David Laws. As Party President, Sal will be closely involved in any post-election moves so it is appropriate that she should be replaced on the negotiating team itself. According to Michael Crick, Channel 4's political correspondent: Baroness (Kate) Parminter to replace Lib Dem president Sal Brinton in the party's 5-person post-election Coalition negotiation team — Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) March 15, 2015 Kate Parminter is perhaps not as well known as the ...
Naturally, as a died-in-the wool Liberal for over half a century I believe firmly in the devolution of decision making to the lowest possible level. "Horses for courses," as one of my friends and fellow devotees put it: whatever is appropriate for whatever level, be it the UN, EU, UK, Nation, Region, Local Authority, or Parish. So I'm predisposed to welcome the UK government's decision, announced a few weeks ago, to devolve all sorts of powers, including the organisation of the NHS in the area, to Greater Manchester. However, last week local government minister Eric Pickles stooped to yet more ...
Nick Clegg is right that the Lib Dems will do better than their poll ratings. This isn't fanciful. The Lib Dems nearly always do better than their poll ratings said before a general election. It is true that these are unusual times and this is a strange election, but don't let the journalists get away with the idea that Clegg talking up the party is some kind of whimsy. I would be staggered if the Lib Dem poll rating stayed down when polling day arrives. I missed the Liverpool conference of the party for family reasons. I've heard Clegg's final ...
Analysis from the Science is Vital campaign has just been released with the worrying news that UK public sector spending on research and development has dropped to less than 0.5% of GDP. "Not only does the decline in investment put us at the bottom of the G8 group of countries, but it's less than any G8 country has invested in R&D in the last 20 years." This is also less than the EU average, and the OECD average for public R&D spending. Science is Vital argue that this is a result of a flat cash settlement in 2010, cuts in ...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a vital but embattled organisation. With the resignation of its chair, Rajendra Pacharuri, there is an opportunity for renewal. Here, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, one of the candidates to succeed Pachauri, sets out his stall. With the upcoming Paris climate negotiations in December this year (COP21) and the decisions beginning to be made about the next (6th) IPCC Assessment, both international climate policy and climate science are at a crossroads. I believe the IPCC must continue to offer scientifically rigorous, yet policy-neutral, assessments of climate change knowledge. That is why I am standing for ...
[IMG: 2015-03-15 10.36.55] What is the point of Britain's Liberal Democrats? Most Lib Dems would point to the party's liberal values. And yet these are shared by members of other parties. The same can be said for the party's attachment to the political centre. Others will talk of community politics – but it is plain that many modern Lib Dems, including its leader Nick Clegg, aren't really interested in this political strategy beyond a few local campaigns. Many outside the party would simply suggest that there is no point to the Lib Dems. The party is destined to be just ...
Today the Guardian is running with a story about Grant Shapps having had a second job as a "multimillion-dollar web marketer" overlapping with his time as a Member of Parliament. It's obvious why the newspaper is running this hard given we're weeks away from a general election, but I want to talk seriously about this incident, its implications and the type of political system we'd ideally like to have. First of all, there is no rule saying that MPs cannot have a second job while serving in the House of Commons, and nor do I think there should be. So ...
Sue Carpendale and Kathy Pollard, Babergh District Councillors In this report Developing information from the 2014 Suffolk Housing Survey A new Planning Enforcement Plan Change to parking space guidance on new developments Work inspiration for schools Developing information from the 2014 Suffolk Housing Survey Good quality housing has an important role in improving the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. Housing is a big national agenda, and Suffolk shares in this. To understand current and future needs the Suffolk Housing Survey was carried out with other local authorities and Public Health. The responses from our residents have provided evidence ...
Steve Webb MP joined local councillors and representatives of Yate Shopping Centre owners Crestbridge and contractors ISG at Friday's ground-breaking ceremony to celebrate the start of serious work on the Yate Riverside site. The site preparation work is complete, and construction of the cinema and shop units has now begun. The Shopping Centre owners expressed their appreciation of the local community's support in the long process of bringing a cinema complex to Yate. Crestbridge appointed Group Property Controller, Mark Hull, said: "I always promised the people of Yate we would deliver a cinema for the town. It is has been ...
To understand what is going on, read this blog post my Michael Crick. You may also enjoy my 2012 post on Grant Shapps' problems with the internet.
Last week I drew your attention to YourNextMP, a crowdsourced website run by Democracy Club. But they are not the only non-profit organisation providing useful open data information to support democracy, either by data scraping government sites or through crowdsourcing. MySociety started it all many years ago, with the now redundant FaxYourMP. This was eventually replaced by WriteToThem, where visitors could find out the names of their elected representatives (including councillors) and send them a message without having to search other sites for their contact details. FixMyStreet is another simple but powerful site which allows people to report problems to ...
With the general election taking place in May, people are beginning to weigh up all the options for where their vote will go. A BBC/Populus poll has recently suggested the NHS is the most important issue to be covered by the news ahead of the election. Never a company to sit on the sidelines, Athene [...]
I previously mentioned the concerns raised by residents in Blackness Road west of Ashbank Road (on the north side and east of Balgay Road) about how the new arrangements are proposed to affect them. Eurobins were proposed but this was a stretch of Blackness Road where the current collection arrangements were working well, with few if any bins left permanently on the pavement. A consultation meeting took place late last month which I and local residents attended and council officers listened carefully to residents' views. I am pleased to say that the Environment Department has now revised the proposals here ...
I looked down at the assembled members during Nick Clegg's speech yesterday. I was "up in the gods". It was noticeable that Tim Farron was seated right at the end of the front row. The opposite end to the leader and his coterie, that is. There may have been nothing significant in that seating arrangement. We had got used to Tim being part of the leader "doughnut" in conference speech coverage, while he was an excellent President of our party. He is no longer holder of the official copy of "On Liberty", which is part of the trappings of the ...
I'll preface this by saying that I have never spoken to nor met Mr Lloyd and until a few hours ago I wouldn't have been able to name him as the Eastbourne MP. So it seems a bit daft that I should be writing a blog with such a title but this piece is actually based on the words of another. In a piece by Cole Moreton in The Independent entitled, Stephen Lloyd: The Lib Dems 'saved the country, but we destroyed ourselves,' the journalist speaks about how when the Lib Dems pulled off what was a bit of an ...
Danny Alexander has said extra funding to improve children's mental health services will be announced in this week's budget, aimed at early intervention programmes to stop youngsters from developing serious and potentially fatal mental health conditions. [IMG: key_img_5142ytf] The package will also include a doubling of cash for the treatment of armed forces veterans. Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: "The rising number of children who contact ChildLine because they have mental health issues is deeply disturbing – and just as worrying is the lack of services to help them." He warned that "we risk leaving a generation ...
Dying patients should get free social care Norman Lamb, the Care and Support minister, has backed a recommendation by the Health Select Committee calling for the dying to be cared for in their own home for free, if they chose. [IMG: key_Norman_Lamb] The MP's report said that although around two-thirds of people say they would prefer to die at home, more than half of deaths still occur in NHS hospitals because patients were worried that bereaved families would face large bills. Providing free social care in patient's homes could save the NHS money and improve the impact of these situations ...
Innovate UK, the £500m quango responsible for funding innovation and technology, has appointed Ruth McKernan as its new CEO. Stian Westlake offers her five ideas for the organisation's future. Dear Dr McKernan, Congratulations on the new job. It's great to see a senior scientist with deep expertise in both research and business taking over at Innovate UK. Continue reading...
I have blogged many times about the huge amount of sugar we consume daily and the impact that has on our health and on our teeth. I have argued that if mass medicinal solutions such as adding the poison fluoride to our water supply are unnecessary and that cutting back on sugar additives would be equally as effective whilst containing other benefits. The average person consumes 150 pounds of sugar each year, that is the equivalent of approximately seventy five one kilogram bags or 33 tablespoons each day.Today's South Wales Evening Post sets out some of the sources of that ...
