Go to my recent post on Whitstable and scroll down to the last photograph. You will see the same young lady, or at least a close cousin, urging you to visit that resort too, The reason she gives may be less then compelling to modern eyes.
I am not a parent or a teacher, so no doubt I take the problem of unauthorised absence from school too lightly. But I have always been uneasy at the idea of headteachers having the power to fine parents over this issue - and there are those who would like to see this power applied more widely. I also note that a system that has rather retreated from punishing children in recent decades has taken happily to punishing parents.
Tony Greaves has an article in the new issue of Liberator. You can download a PDF of it from the magazine's website and it is worth doing so. He writes: The new members can be a lifeline but only if they are encouraged to come forward with their talents and interests, and if they can become active by which I mean rather more than as automatons in a virtual phone bank.In the course of the article Tony lets slip that he has been banned from Liberal Democrat Voice. If you want to know why, then you will have to turn ...
Wed 12th
21:49
Proposals to improve the Stockfield Road published - Consultation Event Tuesday 1st September at Fox...
Consultation is currently being held on proposals to improve the Stockfield Road from (and including) its junction with the Warwick Road to its junction with Mansfield Road. These proposals would be funded by two different schemes. The first is a Local Safety Scheme (LSS) for the Warwick Road / Stockfield Road junction. The second is the Green Travel District cycling and pedestrian scheme, covering the Stockfield Road between the Warwick Road and Mansfield Road. The Local Safety Scheme proposals are: (1) Traffic signalisation of the Warwick Road/Stockfield Road junction. New signals to be co-ordinated with those at the Warwick Road/Fox ...
Wednesday Do you know Alex Carlile? He was at one time Liberal MP for Montgomeryshire before being replaced by Lembit Opik - the general view in Welshpool and Caersws was that the latter brought some much needed gravitas to the role. Yet Carlile's career has prospered in recent years and I meet him this morning while strolling by the Thames at Westminster. "I hear you've been asked to serve on the committee that is going to review freedom of information legislation," I say brightly. He looks at me suspiciously: "Who told you that?" Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland ...
EVENT SUMMARY On Wednesday, 12 August 2015, there was a Press Conference at the House of Lords discussing political relations between the UK and Bahrain. Chaired by Lord Avebury, the Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary HR Group, speakers included the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) Media Coordinator, Andrew Smith; the Stop The War Coalition National Officer, Stephen Bell; and former Bahraini MP Jawad Fairooz. Lord Avebury began the event by giving an overview about the recent political events in Bahrain, to begin the discussion as to whether the Kingdom is moving in the right direction. Notably, he pointed towards the government ...
Another recipe that I found in my files, not sure where from. Ingredients (serves 2; I did double quantities) 2 pork escalopes 1 leek, washed and sliced 125 ml white wine 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard 50 ml chicken stock 1 tbsp double cream Fresh basil, sliced Salt Pepper Lemon juice Olive oil Boiled rice Season and fry the pork escalopes in a pan over medium heat until nicely golden and cooked through. Put to the side and keep warm. Put the leek slices into the pan and fry for 5 - 6 minutes. Add the wine and reduce by two ...
David Evershed 12th Aug '15 – 7:20pm – "Since the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are also in favour of staying in the EU, I don't see that it makes Lib Dems any more a natural home for these EU immigrants than the other main parties." I'll respond in simplistic terms: for Labour would... More Lib Dems are the natural party for Eastern Europeans in Britain
It is now just over three months since the General Election result and the political landscape has been transformed. From a position of a virtual dead heat the Conservatives are now the dominant force in British politics with no serious opposition, the Labour Party are disintegrating, the LibDems have been reduced to a pile of rubble, no-one quite knows where UKIP are, and Scotland is virtually a one party state. In these last few months I have had time to read a lot, think about what has happened and look at the stats. Not least, I have had a look ...
This is an expansion of Kennedy's short 2014 ebook The Death Pit (I seem to be one of the few people who read it), featuring the Fourth Doctor immediately after The Deadly Assassin, investigating horrible deaths and strange goings on at a Scottish golf course. It includes all of the good stuff from the earlier version and quite a lot more incidental detail. Not much more to say than that it is very entertaining and catches the mid-Fourth Doctor era well, with perhaps a few nods to how the world has changed since the mid-1970s. Isn't it interesting that the ...
Wired reports (with some of the exuberant BE SCARED hype removed): Epstein's [research] paper combines a few years' worth of experiments in which Epstein and his colleague Ronald Robertson gave people access to information about the race for prime minister in Australia in 2010, two years prior, and then let the mock-voters learn about the candidates via a simulated search engine that displayed real articles. One group saw positive articles about one candidate first; the other saw positive articles about the other candidate. (A control group saw a random assortment.) The result: Whichever side people saw the positive results for, ...
Seasonally adjusted claimant unemployment fell in Birmingham last month to 29,199 or 5.8%. This is now made up of JSA claimants and Universal Credit claimants, with UC being introduced for new claimants since May. Unfortunately ward based information currently only includes JSA figures and this will steadily become a smaller portion of claimant unemployment. As a result I'll stop reporting these figures, until they include UC numbers. Instead I'll give the Yardley Constituency figures which do include both JSA and UC claimants. In July the figure was 2,531 or a claimant rate of 5.2%. The Birmingham claimant rate remains higher ...
[IMG: ALDC's latest A3 Focus templates have now been released] The latest template to be released is our A3 Focus leaflet - both in colour and for a RISO. There is lots of room for you to make it as local as possible and have also included an article announcing Tim Farron as the new leader. In the templates you will also see a number [...]
Sutton Fire Station is opening its doors to local residents to meet their local Fire Crews and enjoy a fun family day. The Open Day is on Sunday 16th August 12 – 4pm at 43 St Dunstans Hill, Sutton, SM1 2JX and will be supporting the Firefighters Charity and St Raphael's Hospice. Activities will include: · [...]
A nice little book to go with the film, though this is not a novelisation but a biography of Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue by his grandson (who never knew him) and a Sunday Times journalist. It's a fascinating and intricate story of reverse migration - at a time when Australia was still absorbing newcomers from Britain, Logue and his family went in the opposite driection, to try and carve out a career in a new field for which he had no professional qualifications; and he succeeded, and what's more, he made a lot of people's lives better, one of ...
Britain's always changing. That is one of the best things about our country. Liberal Democrats, and before us Whigs and Liberals, have long supported outsiders seeking to make this place their home. Whigs supported Huguenots - religious refugees from France. In the nineteenth century Liberals supported equality for Jews and Catholics, who were denied basic civil rights. It is well documented in history that the arrival of new people has made our country greater. Immigrants have brought new talents and energy. In the second-half of the last century we fought for the Race Relations Act and other laws to ensure ...
[IMG: 11401436_898511206889439_8365562444036744778_n] For this week's build up blog I took some time to interview Councillor Andy Kelly on his recent success of regaining his seat in Rochdale. We chat about coming back from election defeats, fighting Labour in the North of England and some of the work Andy gets up to as a Liberal Democrat Councillor. Let [...]
Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament responded to news that a third bailout package had been agreed pending ratification by the Greek Parliament: "For the first time an agreement is reached that represents more than an accounting exercise. It is a more intelligent approach, based on necessary structural reforms, that could mark a new beginning. Papandreou and Samaras never committed themselves to such in-depth structural reforms. Tsipras shows that he is committed to keep Greece in the Eurozone. "The new package entails some structural reforms to make Greece competitive again. Closed professions ...
Today Julia Hartley-Brewer has an article on Capx urging non-aligned voters who care about their country to join Labour as a supporter in order to back "Anyone But Corbyn" – the so-called ABC campaign. To be honest I'd always thought Hartley-Brewer was a signed-up Tory. She frequently writes for the Telegraph, used to broadcast on [...]
This is a special notice to let people know that the ALDC website will be temporarily offline whilst we transfer our equipment over to a new data centre. We anticipate the downtime to extend from 6.30pm to no later than 8pm on Friday 12th August. Apologies for any inconvenience.
[IMG: campaigning.jpg] We had a fantastic weekend in Wood Green - with a huge team of Lib Dems out campaigning on both Saturday and Sunday. The weather was fantastic and there were plenty of people in, willing to talk about the local area and the national political situation.
I was delighted to see Tim Farron taking on housing as a personal campaigning priority. In order to do this effectively, though, he will sooner or later need to take on a culture of expedient NIMBYism in his own party. Local campaigns against new development are often highly effective in garnering media attention and engaging people who might join or support the party. At times, they are also the right thing to do for an area. At other times, however, they can be opportunistic and exaggerated: in a recent example I came across, a local party deliberately misinterpreted a proposal ...
[IMG: Liberal Democrat Newswire logo] Liberal Democrat Newswire #70 came out last week, You can also read it below, but if you'd like the convenience of getting it direct by email in future, just sign up here. It's free! Since it came out, Tim Farron has also announced his Parliamentary Campaigns Team. Welcome to the 70th edition of Liberal Democrat Newswire, and a special welcome to Iris Walker from Aberdeenshire who won a copy of Vince Cable's memoirs in the prize draw for new readers of Liberal Democrat Newswire. Your autographed book is in the post Iris and thank you ...
According to Peter Kelner, Labour seems determined to follow the death road and elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Well, as we know polls may not be as reliable as they seem, so we will need to wait until the final agony is ground out. However if this deluded and dangerous man IS elected leader of the Labour Party, what then? Well, for a start it may well be that Norman Baker's gloomy view of the UK as a one-party state is actually fulfilled. Certainly an electorate that was pretty reluctant to endorse Ed Miliband is unlikely to give more support ...
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Bury Council is currently consulting on a major new 20mph zone to cover the a large area of to the north of Prestwich – this the areas around Nursery Road, Glebelands Road, Poppythorn Lane, Guest Road and the Langley estate area. It also includes Fairfax Road and the part of Heys Road between the school and Prestwich Metrolink that is not already 20mph. The details are: – establish an area-wide 20mph zone with signing at all boundary points; – install pairs of 75mm high speed cushions on Fairfax Road, Poppythorn Lane, Nursery Road, Guest Road, Langley Hall Road, Glebelands Road ...
We all remember the famous James Landale interview with Cameron pre-election. Or do we do so correctly? Dave, chilling out in his kitchen, a man of the people, said this about his near future political ambitions: "Terms are like Shredded wheat. Two are wonderful, three might just be too many." The rumour mill started immediately after this hit the public, of course. Modern day prime ministers, when asked about their political mortality, are supposed to reply that they intend to live forever (politically speaking). So once Cameron speculated that he wouldn't stand for a third term as PM, this was ...
Healthwatch Bury is currently undertaking a survey to find out what patients' experience has been regarding the dental provision in the Bury area. [IMG: healthwatch_349x65] This survey is targeted at people with disabilities however we want to hear feedback from anyone who is using dental services in the Borough of Bury. We would be grateful if you could complete this survey about your dental practice and your recent visit. Feedback from this survey will enable Healthwatch Bury to identify areas that may need improvement and therefore your feedback is very valuable. Please return the surveys to Healthwatch Bury before 31st ...
As I've not been doing very well at reviewing books on here — and as I've not had the energy to write full blog posts recently because of my health — I decided this week to write a short review, only a few paragraphs, of each book I finish on Goodreads as I finish it. [...]
Just to let people know about some overnight working which is happening on the Metrolink between Bowker Vale and Heaton Park and between Besses and Whitefield stations. This is information from Transport for Greater Manchester: This is a rolling programme of overnight working on weekday nights between 23.59 pm on Sunday 9. August until 05.00 am on Friday 25. September 2015. This work will then resume on weekday nights between 23.59 pm on Sunday 4.October 2015 and 05.00 am on Friday 16. October, 2015. Please note that this does not mean that work will be continuous at any one location ...
Please sign the petition, in the shops in Churchtown, against the closure of Churchtown's NatWest Bank.
Last month, I advised that I had written to the Scottish Government's Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners' Rights asking that a review of the planning legislation be undertaken, following the revelation that, when upgrading a mobile phone mast in Perth Road (from 3G to 4G), a mobile phone provider did not require planning permission. This allowed the provider to replace a 'disguised' mast with an undisguised and unsightly one. I have now received a response from Scottish Government' Policy Manager in Development Management - Planning & Architecture, that, for the record, I reproduce below. The response is, ...
A great idea from the new wave of Liberal Democrat members: [IMG: I am a liberal because - photo 1] [IMG: I am a liberal because - photo 2] [IMG: I am a liberal because - photo 3] [IMG: I am a liberal because - photo 4] [IMG: I am a liberal because - photo 5] See more of them here and for more about what the Liberal Democrats believe see my special poster.
A new planning applications has been received in Holyrood Ward as below: Application Number: 58814 Registration Date: 24/07/2015 Location: 8 Ferndene Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2RB Proposal: Lawful development certificate for proposed single storey rear and side extension Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you require further information or help with this. The details will be on the Council's website here. Tim
A new planning applications has been received in Holyrood Ward as below: Application Number: 58827 Registration Date: 07/08/2015 Location: Brook Farm, Simister Lane, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2SB Proposal: Demolition of existing buildings currently used for oil recycling business and livery yard; Replacement with 4 no. dwellings and conversion and extension of traditional barn to form a single dwelling (resubmission) Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you require further information or help with this. The details will be on the Council's website here. Tim
A new planning applications has been received in Holyrood Ward as below: Application Number: 58983 Registration Date: 15/07/2015 Location: 19 Hastings Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 1PF Proposal: Two storey extension at side and conservatory at rear Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you require further information or help with this. The details will be on the Council's website here. Tim
The Antonelli Affair Aaron pulls it all together. What a record of #sadpuppies achievement! (tags: sadpuppies ) Sasquan statement on Lou Antonelli and David Gerrold Precedent set; or maybe not. (tags: sf sadpuppies )
The Queers Left Behind: How LGBT Assimilation Is Hurting Our Community's Most Vulnerable The surprising truth about Duchamp's urinal - not surprising, just depressing. Air travellers refuse to show boarding passes at airport shops after news that the info is used by stores to avoid VAT Lib Dems call for open process on Todmorden development board A chrome extension to replace "political correctness" with "treating people with respect" How benefits propaganda is manufactured by mainstream media Stop Saying You Only Care About Quality in the Same Breath That You Argue Against Diversity How to write a human rights article for ...
I hadn't expected the Labour leadership election to be quite so engrossing, but it really is riveting. As Labour is currently Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, this is all far more important than just jousting among lefties. In fact, it isn't about jousting among lefties at all. Only my old friend Jeremy Corbyn would place himself [...]
