The Sunday Express today has the story: "Ukip sets lawyers on biased BBC: Furious Farage goes to war over Left-wing debate audience". You probably saw Nigel Farage complaining about the audience during the debate of five opposition party leaders last week. The clip is below where he says it is "a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC". Surely he realised that if he went on to a debate programme with four left-wing speakers, then the audience would be 80% left-wing. Isn't it obvious? The audience should reflect the make-up of the panel. However, the BBC, being ...
Sun 19th
20:54
RIP Ronnie Carroll - Double UK Eurovision singer who's still on the ballot paper in Hampstead and Ki...
In a previous life I had a radio show where I played records from the 50s, 60s and 70s. I played songs occasionally by Northern Irish singer Ronnie Carroll. "Roses are red" was one I particularly remember playing. It was number 3 in the charts in 1962. I have it on vinyl, carefully "archived" in my loft. Carroll had six top forty hits between 1956 and 1963. He represented the UK in the Eurovision Song contest in 1962 with "Ring-a-ding girl" which came fourth. The following year he represented us with "Say wonderful things" which also came fourth. He was ...
Good news: Alexei Sayle is working on the second volume of his memoirs. After Stalin Ate My Homework will come Thatcher Stole My Trousers. You can here the great man reading an extract from it here, preceded by one of his short stories. Sayle is not just a comedian trading on his celebrity: he is a proper writer and I have twice heard him read from his collections of short stories.
Dear Mr McInnes, You may not know me. In fact it is highly likely that you don't. I haven't been to Fratton Park in ten years. I used to be a Season Ticket holder but I left the area and fell out of love with the club. Too many crooks spoil the enjoyment and rip out the heart and all that, is that a well-known saying or have I mixed that up? Anyway when the PST I felt a twinge in my chest. No it wasn't the abundance of takeaway food in my system forcing my veins to throb, it ...
The people at Polifiller have measured the party manifestos against their database of political clichés. This was compiled with the help of political correspondents, editors and opinion formers. The exercise produced the following league table: Conservatives - 200 clichés Labour - 58 clichés UKIP - 51 clichés Greens - 49 clichés Plaid Cymru - 48 clichés Liberal Democrats - 44 clichés SNP - yet to publish Well done to the writers of the Liberal Democrat manifesto. Among the clichés they let through were "package of measures," "those who need it," "there is more to do" and "a return to boom ...
Lib Dems Believe Wordle 31 Freedom - A Green Future
Crime is falling – both recorded and from the National Crime Survey – but for many they still can't trust the Police. At community meetings Stop and Search is causing real understandable angst. A 2013 commission found that black people were six times more likely to be stopped and search than white people, and in some areas this was as high as 29 times more likely.. No wonder for a large proportion of our community the Police are an annoyance rather than the sign of crime busters. Some years ago locally we funded hand held metal detectors for our Safer ...
We believe and trust in the power and potential of every individual to be whoever and whatever they want to be. We want to tear down the barriers in your way and we want to give you the tools and knowledge you need. It's about freedom and we believe that to be truly free every person must be free from the shackles of poverty, ignorance and conformity. Individuals and communities must also be free from the crushing concentration of power in any institution wherever it exists - in the state, the media, in corporations or elsewhere; individuals should have the ...
Judging from some of the things I've been seeing on social media, this appears to be the point where the stress of campaigning is getting a bit much for some people, and levels of tetchiness are reaching dangerously high points. This is accompanied by its traditional cry of 'I'll report this to the returning officer!' when confronted by anything from their opponents that seems even slightly dodgy, as though they have any power to intervene. Something most people don't understand about British elections is that the powers of the Returning Officer are pretty much constrained to organising the running of ...
House of Lords Official Report November 4, 2014 Column 1619 Lord Avebury (LD): My Lords, does my noble friend note the comment made by the UN special rapporteur on migrant rights that it is appalling to bank on a rise in the number in people who drown acting as a deterrent? Does he think that the EU views a steep rise in the number of people killed with complacency, if not with satisfaction, because more people are drowning and acting as a deterrent?Lord Bates: It is certainly not the case to say that the Government have been passive on this. ...
Pop music. I haven't heard a genuinely classic pop music song so far this year. I have heard many good songs but they've been in other genres. Yet what do you get when you get one of the greatest actors of his generation to star in a music video for a third placed Canadian Idol? You get one of the most catchy and quality pop tunes for a long, long time. Carly Rae Jepsen burst on to the scene with Call Me Maybe and also had another hit in a collaboration with Owl City but has been off the radar ...
Lord Bonkers continues his visit to Norfolk. Norman Lamb's friends have a lot to answer for At this point we are interrupted by a woman whose daughter was at school with Lamb's son and wants to urge... I expect you can guess what she wants to urge Lamb. When she has done urging and left, I tell Lamb: "It is clear to me that you have no alternative. If your neighbours are ever to enjoy a normal life again, you will have to make an announcement that you will be a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats the ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 415th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (12 – 18 April, 2015), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Lib Dems publish constituency poll ...
Sun 19th
18:41
Ludlow water fountain restoration splutters to a halt - will town council take action itself?
I am sorry that a marvellous philanthropic gesture to restore the water fountain in Castle Gardens has come to a halt. The Civic Society has withdrawn its offer to manage and pay for the conservation and repair of the fountain. This is after prevarication in town council committees as councillors challenged the scheme and asked [...]
[IMG: Mr Bean on a Yellow Mini. ] No, I've no idea how this image is relevant to the story either. But it's what Google Image Search gave me when I tried looking for free to reuse images with the keywords "clipboard lib dem". Spending away a few moments on a doorstep whilst doing postal voter knocking up for Lynne Featherstone, trying to work out if that faint noise was someone coming to the door, a burglar, a neighbour or just my imagination, I realised how wrong my clipboard was. Not just that it was a traditional clipboard rather than ...
My head is full of images of death, Of corpses floating, bloated in the sea; They looked across the blue and saw a light A flickering hope that flattered to deceive. Imagine for a moment we are there, Abandoned and decaying in the sun: Our brief life is measured out in moments, each one shot through with [...]
The Watford campaign team have given us all a lesson in how to do video campaigning this election. First there was this introduction to Dorothy as a person, and now there are three solid policy reasons to vote for her: Three Reasons to Vote Dorothy from Think About It Films on Vimeo.
[IMG: Deadline warning] 5pm Tuesday 21 April: that's the deadline for making a new postal or postal proxy vote application, or to change an existing postal or proxy vote (such as to change the address for a postal vote or to cancel a proxy vote). Application forms for postal votes and the many different varieties of proxy votes are available here (postal votes) and here (proxy votes). The deadline for proxy votes, if they are to be cast in person rather than by post, is not for another few days – 5pm Tuesday 28 April.
I'm seeing a lot of people at the moment saying that they're not planning on voting this year, because their vote will make little difference. And I can certainly see the point they're making. We have a crappy electoral system, one which leads inevitably to governments either solely formed by, or completely dominated by, two [...]
From the Sunday Times Shippers Forecast (£) The Forecast's favourite ginger spin doctor, James McGrory of the Lib Dems, looked even more dishevelled than usual after a night bunked up at Nick Clegg's constituency home. "I was stuck in a tiny child's bed and Nick was ages in the shower," he explained. Clegg, who has quit smoking, has an incentive for McGrory — who still puffs away like a chimney — not to wash. "I just have to sit next to him," Clegg told me. "It's nicotine consumption by osmosis. In a separate interview in the same paper, Nick talks ...
We were intrigued to be told this week that of the 32 candidates standing in the election who have a background in Physics, 12 of them are Liberal Democrats. A blog on Physicsworld.com reveals all: In the last parliament (2010-2015), five members of the UK House of Commons held undergraduate degrees in physics: Tom Brake, Don Foster and John Hemming (Liberal Democrats), Andy Love(Labour) and Alok Sharma (Conservative). Foster and Love are retiring this year, but the other three are standing again. They face re-election battles of varying difficulty, but overall, their chances of continuing to represent the Physics Party ...
Old and New – There's nothing pleasing on the eye about the exterior of Liverpool's Moorfields underground station unlike the wonderful frontage (that's all that is left) of the former Exchange Station which it effectively replaced. Here we have the modern Moorfields sign with the old Exchange frontage in the background. [IMG: Old & New] Click on the photo to enlarge it. The photo is amongst my Flickr shots at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/
[IMG: 7 ver 4 full] Many thanks to the 30,300 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Liberal Democrat Manifesto – detailed costings published (12 comments) by Paul Walter Poll sensation for Jo Swinson (54 comments) by Caron Lindsay That's not how we used to do politics in the Highlands: SNP candidate takes supporters on aggressive visit to Charles Kennedy's office (40 comments) by Caron Lindsay The regret of voting yes (38 comments) by Jenny Wilson Nick Clegg's BBC1 interview – Evan Davis disappoints with constant references to Clegg's multi-national background (50 comments) ...
Apparently they're on about bringing back another British icon to our screens: . Skipping lightly over what Unity referred to on twitter as the Cthonian nightmare of the presenting team, my thoughts naturally turn to: Which song should we campaign for a mass download of to game the number one slot for the week it returns? My first thought was Top of the Pops by Rezillos, but that's a bit obvious. Then I had a another idea. An idea so awesome in its terrible trolliness... when they started showing repeats of seventies TotP on BBC4 the one song that ...
Willie Rennie has given a candid interview to the Scotsman about the prospects for the Liberal Democrats and our record in government. Given the tuition fees question, he is apologetic but asks people to look at the whole picture: Saying sorry isn't a tactic," he insists. "People who are annoyed with us will be annoyed with us, but they deserve an apology. Some will never understand or forgive. They're entitled to do that. My only plea to them is look at all the things we're getting right, not just the thing we got wrong." Repentance and sincerity are unnatural political ...
When I ran for the District Council in 2011, one of the things that exercised me about my Conservative opponent's campaign was her claim to be local. Given that she lived, and continues to live, in Eye, a mere fourteen miles from Creeting St Peter, and eleven miles from the ward boundary, and both the Green candidate and myself actually lived in the ward, it did rankle somewhat. So, having finally received a leaflet from this year's Conservative candidate, Jemma Lynch, I am not entirely surprised to see her described as "the local choice for Stowupland and Creeting St Peter". ...
Here are the latest national voting intention figures from each of the main pollsters. Five put Tories ahead. Five put Labour ahead. One makes it a tie. To put the numbers into longer context, take a look at my database of polling figures going back to 1945, which is updated quarterly and remember the warning about individual polls. Polling company Con Lab LibDem UKIP Green Con lead Fieldwork Method ComRes 33% 35% 7% 16% 4% -2% 11-13/3 Online ComRes 34% 33% 12% 12% 4% 1% 7-8/4 Phone ICM 39% 33% 8% 7% 7% 6% 10-12/4 Phone Ashcroft 33% 33% 9% ...
The Liberal Democrat manifesto offers a vision of a fair and sustainable future for all, including the world's poorest people, says Christian Aid.
Earlier this week the Lib Dems launched our manifest for the general election. I think it's great – do you?
You can't get much more Nineties than David Letterman holding a Counting Crows CD. It still sounds good, even if their lead singer Adam Duritz does tend to overact in live performances.
You have to register to vote by tomorrow, 20 April. If you haven't already registered, please do! Here's the online link: Register to vote – GOV.UK Yesterday I attended a Wartime Tea Concert in my constituency. The hall was decorated in bunting, the orchestra played Dam Busters, the screens behind the orchestra showed pictures of the Normandy landings and ration queues. There must have been at least twenty tables set for tea and covered with Union Jacks. At each table was a group of elderly people from either a local care home or from a lunch club. Their generation remembers ...
The toughest part of being on "watch and wait" are the days between going for blood tests and seeing the consultant to collect the results. Even though I now know the routine and I'm still feeling generally well, these "in between days" are the ones I find most difficult to cope with. I'm sure this ... Continue reading »
Two journalists who were in Leicester for the trial of Frank Beck in 1991 have been writing about the event. Dani Garavelli, then a junior reporter on the Leicester Mercury, In Scotland on Sunday today he recalls: As part of his defence, Beck claimed he had acted to protect a 13-year-old from Janner, who had groomed and abused the boy over two years. The evidence against Janner amounted to allegations made by Beck and the boy, a witness who overheard Beck telling the boy to stop seeing the MP, and affectionate, but not sexually explicit, letters written by Janner to ...
Christian 'ex-gay' porn actor returns to complain about 'gay bowel syndrome' This entire article is a rich seam of comedy gold, including "porn glued us together" & his autobiography being called "Swallowed by Satan" (tags: ) UK politics gothic - oh poor Ed Milliband! All four are good though. (tags: ) For the benefit of Michael Crick - why Clegg wasn't at the BBC's challengers' debate (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
First there was the leaflet Labour had to put out in Leeds North West, apologising for making a false statement about Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland. Now Labour have had to apologise for another false statement: [IMG: Labour Leeds North West apology]
Sun 19th
09:30
Solving the problems of the House of Lords and political party funding at the same time
[IMG: For just £50, you too could sit on these benches.] For just £50, you too could sit on these benches. So, the last time I wrote about the House of Lords, it didn't spark a widespread movement to abolish it, and from the look of this year's election manifestos, there'll be no attempt to do so over the next few years. Which means it's time for me to come up with a new idea, and I think this is a good one because it provides us with a number of things: A new way to appoint members of the ...
This week I have been in Istanbul attending the inaugural conference of the International Human Rights Coalition for Iraq (IHRCI), which aims to not only publicise human rights abuses on all sides in Iraq but even more importantly to document them assiduously so that prosecutions can be brought against the perpetrators. The late Saddam Hussein [...]
To my knowledge there are now three members of the Calderdale Liberal Democrats Policy Working Group with voting rights in the Hugos. Now the words "Calderdale Liberal Democrats Policy Working Group" might not convey just how SJWy we are, so I'm going to lay it out for you. We are members of a British political party that openly champions social justice*. We are ACTIVE members of that political party. We are such active members that we debate policy and submit motions & amendments to party conference, thereby to make party policy EVEN MORE SJWy than it already is. We have ...
Sun 19th
09:02
Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband want Britain to remain in the EU. So why are neither of them will...
Yesterday, Ed Miliband gave a speech on immigration in Great Yarmouth. It's a seaside town, one of those seats in which the Tories, Labour and UKIP are basically neck in neck in the polls. So I slightly shuddered beforehand, particularly given a great deal of what Labour has said on this topic during the last five years I've found rather unsettling. But in the end it was fine; middling you could even have described it as. As for the bit about the EU, well here it is in full: "We won't make false promises and we won't offer you false ...
[IMG: Manifesto-Cover-2015] This week was Manifesto Week — curb your excitement — and I offered my views on what the Lib Dems have to say to the electorate over at The Times's Red Box blog... Commitments to balance the budget, cut taxes for the low-paid, invest in health and education, and protect the environment have long been trailed. This will disappoint some Lib Dem activists, who yearn for the party to trumpet its radicalism on issues like civil liberties and political reform. But Ryan Coetzee, the party's chief strategist, knows what appeals to its target market - the "persuadables" who ...
Charles Kennedy's team has put together a video of pictures from his 32 years as an MP. When I first watched it the other day, It actually made me cry when I watched it. That's not just because it scares me to be old enough to remember things that happened three decades ago. It was quite something for me, growing up in Caithness, to have someone just 7 years older than me elected in the next constituency. During the 1984 European election campaign, Charles Kennedy, Alan Beith and Bob Maclennan held a public meeting in Wick to support Russell Johnston's ...
[IMG: An old pocket watch ] James Gleick has the story of how Britain's Parliament defined time (who needs Doctor Who when you have MPs?), along the legal conundrums that followed the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act 1880: The time in Great Britain [according to the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act 1880] is Greenwich mean time... Even this simple Act, however, failed in its hope of removing all doubts. A few years later — to be exact, on August 19, 1898, at 8:15 PM (Greenwich mean time) — a man named Gordon was nabbed, nicked, busted, and collared by the ...
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the Friends of Balgay Spring meeting, held outdoors on a beautiful afternoon on Balgay Hill. In addition to an informative talk from Jay Grant from the City Council's Environment Department on the subject of improvements in Greater Balgay, there was the unveiling of a new plaque at Balgay Bridge (kindly funded by the Hugh Fraser Foundation) and a memorial plaque and bench in memory of the late Dr Hilda Spear. Hilda was for many years the Chair of the Friends of Balgay and passed away a year ago. It was good to see ...
Julia Marley, of the CPRE, writes in the Yorkshire Post about how smart planning is the key to protecting the countryside. She states that the CPRE realises that affordable homes are needed to keep the rural economy and communities alive. She argues that affordable homes can be delivered by smart planning, by building on brownfield land rather than green fields, protecting the Green Belt and increasing the delivery of homes communities want. She goes on to say that by using local skills from small and medium-sized builders, houses will get built that reflect the character of the towns and villages ...
For those of us who like to keep a close eye on our former Prime Minister, today's Telegraph has a useful article looking at Tony Blair's business affairs. It may cause Ed Miliband to think twice before enlisting the help of this thrice times winner of General Elections. The paper says that Mr. Blair has signed a controversial contract overseeing mining deals in Latin America. He is being paid to advise the Colombian government on how it spends £2 billion earned from mining deals: The contract, obtained by The Telegraph, reveals that the Colombian government does not pay any fees ...
# The colour tabloid that was delivered to us earlier last week was no use to anyone sitting on my living room floor. So one of the big jobs of the past few days has been to get it through people's doors. The copies for my ward where put into their delivery patches in my house. I had to move them all in my land rover to get them to our campaign HQ (John McClurey's house) They were
