Anybody who signs a letter "I remain, Your Royal Highness, Your most humble and obedient servant" should not just be debarred from politics, but should be sniggered at by everybody they encounter for the rest of their life.Quite.
While Pandemonium Shadow Show had not been the commercial success that Nilsson may have hoped, it was nonetheless an artistic triumph, and when the time came to record a second album with RCA, Nilsson didn't change a winning formula, once again working with producer Rick Jarrard and arranger George Tipton, with the bulk of the [...]
The old lead-mining site at Snailbeach in Shropshire filmed with a drone. The music is Nothing Else Matters by Apocalyptica.
On 1st July, we lost one of our inspirational politicians and former leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy. It was a tragic day with many Liberal Democrats tweeting about their fond memories of Charles and how he has made a difference to so many people. He was not just one of the finest politicians [...]
That small, yet obviously very select, band of staff who had the privilege of working for Charles Kennedy are this week, like everyone in the world of politics and beyond, slowly coming to terms with his untimely and tragic loss. Working for the Leader of a major political party is a rare honour, and often the pinnacle of a staffer's career in Westminster. To those of us from Office Kennedy, these are dark days but we have been sharing thoughts and memories with each other which is helping to ease the blow. The overwhelming view, as shown by most tributes, ...
Charles Kennedy's family issued a statement this afternoon saying that they had been "touched beyond compare" by the "outpouring of warmth" for Charles. They thanked everyone who had sent them messages and who had helped them since Charles' death on Monday. They also announced the findings of the post-mortem, that Charles had died of a "major haemorrhage" linked to alcoholism. Here is their statement in full: Charles's family would first like to thank the public and politicians who have been so warm in their tributes to him and so sincere in their concern for us. We have been touched beyond ...
Cheadle Area Committee starts at 6pm on Tuesday 9th June 2015 at the Ladybridge Residents Club, Edenbridge Road, Cheadle Hulme. As ever, all are welcome. On the agenda for Tuesday is: Application for £453 funding from All Hallows Church youth group on Councillor Lane Application for funding from Targeted Youth Engagement Services in Stockport. Planning application 58201 – major extension to 276 Styal Road, Heald Green Planning application 58234 – demolition of garages off Pendlebury Road and building two new houses Presentation of neighbourhood action plan by Stockport Homes Brookfield Shiers Family Trust annual report (money the Area Committee hold ...
I may have mentioned in the past that, whilst Suffolk doesn't have the most exciting landscape, what we do have is built environment, in particular some of the finest medieval churches in the country. The only problem with that is that they do need rather a lot of care and attention. St John the Baptist Parish Church in Needham Market is just one of many fine churches, but I have a particular interest as they are currently attempting to raise rather a lot of money to repair the leaky roof. Sadly, it is not simply a case of repairing and ...
Cllr Keith Holloway, who's campaign against the closure of Gatley's last bank has attracted well over 500 signatures in just a couple of weeks, has written to Barclays asking to meet and discuss alternatives to the closure of branch and cash machine currently being proposed. You can sign Keith's petition against Barclays closing here. Jason Clarke Community Leader, Manchester Area Barclays Leicester LE87 2BB Dear Jason Clarke Proposed Closure of Barclays Bank, Gatley, Cheadle, Stockport We write to raise our concern at Barclays' proposed closure of your Gatley branch. Gatley is a well-established local centre on the west of Stockport ...
I joined the Liberal Democrats partially due to the importance that has constantly been put on mental health issues by the party. I have suffered from extreme depression and have ended up in A&E due to self-harm and suicidal thoughts. A couple of weeks ago I was officially discharged from psychiatry and I'm using my voice - as it's a loud one - for those who are suffering and have lost their voice due to mental health concerns. Over a month ago I wrote to the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, about her apparent lack of understanding when it ...
The BBC reports: Bournemouth Borough Council has been notified by the High Court an election petition has been submitted challenging the result in the Kinson South ward. It has been brought by unsuccessful Labour candidate Beryl Baxter. Ballot books featuring candidates from neighbouring Kinson North ward were incorrectly sent to polling stations. The error also occurred the other way round, meaning a number of voters were unable to cast their votes in both wards. Once the problem was discovered, correct ballot books were delivered to the polling stations and the council sought to contact as many affected voters as possible. ...
Bootle's Balliol Road Station closed in 1948 but the line is still in use to transport freight to the docks. The link below (To the excellent Disused Stations web site) gives a quite detailed and very informative history of the Station and the associated London and North Western Railway line to Alexandra Dock. www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bootle_balliol_road/ [IMG: bootle_baliol_road_map] [IMG: A modern freight train on its way to the docks passes the site of the Balliol Road Station.] Looking north – A modern freight train (photo origin unknown) on its way to the docks passes the site of the Balliol Road Station and ...
Formidable, talented, passionate and hugely inspirational, Charles had deep conviction and was able to engage the public in a way no other politician could. That gave him a level of public popularity rarely enjoyed by a political party leader. Above all else he was highly principled and when Tony Blair took us into the Iraq war supported by the Conservatives, he stood firm to those principles against the political establishment. Despite being heckled and shouted down in Parliament and criticised widely he remained resolutely against a war which he knew was fundamentally wrong. That principled stand was significant in the ...
The next meeting of the Yate and Dodington Safer Stronger Community Group will be on the theme of Health. It will be held on Monday 22 June at St Nicholas Family Centre, Abbotswood, Yate BS37 4LG. There will be with a drop-in exhibition on various health topics from 6pm. This will be followed by the meeting at 7pm, which will be attended by representatives from both Southmead Hospital and Yate Minor Injuries Unit and will give you an opportunity to ask questions of these organisations.
In the conclusion to his book 'The Future of Politics' published in 2000, Charles Kennedy stated It will not be possible to categorize the voter of 2020 as a socialist, or a conservative. Instead, the voter of 2020 will be a variety of things: internationalist, green, committed to properly funded public services, technologically aware and liberal. That could make the voter of 2020 a natural Liberal Democrat supporter - but only if he or she hasn't lost faith in politics altogether. He believed that politicians have to restore a sense of idealism to politics, but that first, we have to ...
Energy company SSE have just published a report, the first report in the UK, where they've commissioned PWC to calculate the value of their 'human capital'. They've calculated it to be £3.4bn. The calculations are based on assessing the expected lifetime earning of each SSE employee based other skills and qualifications and then factored of how long each employee was likely to stay with SSE. With nearly 20,000 employees these predictions based on averages make sense. In fact they calculated the average 'human capital' at £173,000 per head. A really nice finding was that each apprentices generated £4.29 for all ...
This isn't a criticism of our leadership at the time, but rather something with the benefit of hindsight I think we should take as a lesson for next time we find ourselves in a position like 2010. I do not think we drove nearly a hard enough bargain in terms of cabinet posts. The lack [...]
Fri 5th
11:59
Catherine Bearder MEP writes...Why Tim Farron is the right person to rebuild the Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats have taken an electoral pounding over the last five years. When we entered coalition government in 2010 it gave us the opportunity to put Liberal Democrat policies into practice for the first time in generations. We tempered the excesses of the Tories, as is becoming increasingly clear as the new government adopts a frightening, hard right-wing agenda. For this we have paid a heavy price. The loss of so many brilliant and hard-working councillors, MPs and MEPs means we will have to spend time rebuilding and reorganising the party from the bottom up. It seemed we were so ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe:
When Margaret Thatcher's governments began "privatising" publicly owned assets (water, gas, electricity etc) it was one of her predecessors as Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who describe this as equal to the folly of "selling off the family silver " to make ends meet. This is doubly foolish when what is sold is an income bearing asset rather than a non-productive treasure. Yet at two levels Britain and its government continue with this folly. Just before the election the government flogged off a 40% stake in Eurostar. That gave an immediate £750m boost to the deficit reduction strategy but means ...
Angela Douglas is one of the ten members of the all-Labour cabinet in Gateshead. She has spent the last five years sneering at the Lib Dems in government. On Tuesday, on the cabinet agenda, up pops something the all-Conservative government is pushing. Angela didn't like it. And she liked even less the fact that the finger of blame could not be pointed at the Lib Dems. "We can't blame the Lib Dems
I apologise that during the General Election I missed three centenaries of war poets. These will now appear on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of this week. Walter Scott Stuart Lyon was one of five sons of Walter and Isabella Lyon of Tantallon Lodge, North Berwick. He was born on 1 October 1886. He went to Haileybury, before going up to Balliol College, Oxford to study classics. He volunteered for the 9th Battallion Royal Scots before the war being appointed as a second Lieutenant on 14 December 1909, while at the same time undergoing his law training in Edinburgh. He graduated ...
Tring is celebrating the 700th anniversary of Edward II granting a charter to become a [IMG: tring-charter-logo blog] market town – this was a significant step that led to the prosperity of the town today. At the time, a two week fair was held – and in 2015 a period of celebrations to match has been organised – from June 27th to July 5th, there will be a wide range of events including the annual carnival – all celebrating Tring 700. Throughout the year there will be many other events. [IMG: carnival_panel_2015 blog] The Tring Carnival week runs from Thursday ...
The NHS is one of Britain's success stories and is the envy of the world. However, we are continually told that the NHS is in crisis and unless we have significant spending increases it will cease to exist as we know. With a growing and ageing population and a reluctance to fork out more money in tax it is clear that this problem will not go away without radical proposals. It seems that finally we are getting somewhere. On Wednesday Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of the NHS, said that it was a 'no brainer' to try and prevent illness rather ...
You can read all the articles that have caught my attention this week here: https://delicious.com/stephentall Below are a selection... Cutting Child Benefit but increasing free childcare – where is the poverty test? | Joseph Rowntree Foundation Controversial suggestn via @Helen_Barnard: Govt should ask re benefits cuts "How will this affect people in poverty?" http://bit.ly/1K9UpyH Charles Kennedy's death was a tragic waste of talent. Let compassion be his legacy | Gaby Hinsliff | Comment is free | The Guardian Very good by @gabyhinsliff on CK: "He got the big career judgments right; it was everyday life that defeated him." http://bit.ly/1FtpfvR Login ...
Fri 5th
08:55
Paddick backs Farron / Guardian profiles Lamb / how the Lib Dems need to learn from Ashdown
Liberal Democrat peer Brian Paddick has backed Tim Farron in the Lib Dem leadership race. Paddick's backing is more significant than that of most Lib Dem peers because Farron's voting record on equal marriage is one of the factors which may trip him up from his frontrunner status, as I wrote about in Liberal Democrat Newswire #66. However Brian Paddick, twice Mayor of London candidate for the Liberal Democrats and who was the highest ranking openly gay police officer, is fulsome in his praise for Farron: I am supporting Tim Farron for leader of the Liberal Democrats, because I think ...
Since the UK elections, something's been nagging at me. It's not so much the result – politics needs to create losers so it can create governments. I get that. I backed a losing horse. But heh, that's good old democracy for you. No point dwelling on it, life plods on. No, what's been nagging at me, still one month on, is why I'm still feeling interested. Could it be that I'm flirting with the idea of stepping off the sidelines? Might I be about to unmute myself? Is this how it feels to care about what happens next? I joined ...
Having previously requested - and been promised - road surface improvements for Wright Avenue that serves the Riverside Nature Park and Civic Amenity site, I am very pleased to now see this traffic order coming forward : Dundee City Council proposes to make an Order under Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for the purpose of facilitating carriageway resurfacing works. The Order is expected to be in force for 10 days from 8th June 2015 between 6pm and 1am. Its maximum duration in terms of the Act is eighteen months. The effect of the Order is to ...
Today's Times reports that Labour's shadow cabinet is facing a profound split over how to approach the European referendum campaign. The paper says that tensions are emerging between those who think that Labour should mount a high-volume, principled drive to keep Britain in Europe and those who advocate keeping a distance from the cross-party "yes" campaign, using every opportunity to expose Tory divisions and remember voters in Labour heartlands who supported UKIP in the election. Labour's inability to engage with cross-party campaigns is a major problem for them. Their default position seems to be partisan self-interest and that is major ...
Fri 5th
08:18
John Wittingdale's bit on the BBC licence fee hitting the poor the hardest is a tick for the Tories
The Conservative Party, under the guise of new Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, has described the BBC licence fee as "unsustainable" and that the current set up is "worse than poll tax". He said all that in the last parliament actually, when he was not Culture Secretary. Nevertheless, Chris Bryant, the shadow Culture Secretary, decided to go all proactive on Whittingdale in the chamber last week, asking of him: "He says the licence fee is worse than the poll tax but I think he always supported the poll tax. So is Auntie safe in his hands?" To which Whittingdale responded: "As ...
I'm really chuffed to see that the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) campaign for a new lorry design they started two years ago to minimise crashes with cyclists is coming good. [IMG: Unknown] Construction lorries are involved in around 75% of all cyclists deaths in London each year. The cabs of these lorries are high, they have turning movements that many aren't used to and they weigh so much that if they do run you down you are literally squished. A very dear friend had this happen over and she died. So LCC came up with a concept from their lorry ...
Alex Salmond's reaction to the death of Charles Kennedy was as revealing as it was contemptible Which Unicode character should represent the English apostrophe? Why the Unicode committee is very wrong. £20 Nomination Form - who should be on the back of the new £20 note In news that I'm sure surprises nobody, I nominated Rosalind Franklin. X-ray crystalography is TOTALLY a visual art. Liquid Democracy: The Future of #LDConf ? Like Emmerson, I think this will be a great supplement to, rather than replacement for, conference full commons tribute to Charles Kennedy Colorblind: On Witcher 3, Rust, and gaming's ...
As a Party we have always been concerned at the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their better-off counterparts and that is why we worked to have our Pupil Premium implemented in Wales. It is extremely disappointing that after more than three years of the regional consortia being established, Estyn has now reported that none of them has a coherent strategic approach to reducing the impact of deprivation on attainment. The Wales Audit Office report raises issues which I have previously raised with the Minister in the Siambr - a lack of clarity and a lack of focus on achieving ...
