An educational film from 1959.
Gateshead Lib Dems' first action day of the autumn was held today in my ward, Whickham South and Swalwell. We effectively split into 2 groups. One went to Whickham to deliver our latest Focus newsletter. The other, which included me (and Cllr John McClurey - see above), went onto the doorsteps of Byermoor, Marley Hill and a bit of Sunniside. We had a positive response and a good return rate
Sat 26th
19:59
Community concern over spate of burglaries in Ludlow needs addressing - is it the result of police c...
There were three break-ins in the centre of Ludlow last Sunday night. Aragons and Harp Deli were two of the targets. Marie's in Station Drive was another. In one case a lot of cash was stolen. A few weeks ago there were break-ins at the Dinham Hotel, the cricket club on Burway and Fishmore Hotel. [...]
From the Shropshire Star: Riverbank piling works as part of the Jackfield Stabilisation Project have now been completed. That work involved 2,000 steel piles being driven into the banks of the River Severn to stabilise the land and halt the land slip - and was the bulk of the work designed to prevent landslides and try to reduce erosion and the movement of land in the Ironbridge Gorge.I have blogged about subsidence at Jackfield before. Do follow that link and view the newsreel footage of the area from the 1950s. The photo above shows Jackfield's remarkable Victorian church, St Mary ...
A news release from the Electoral Commission brings the news: Following the European Parliamentary, local and mayoral elections in May 2014 ... the Electoral Commission has found that in respect of the verification and count at the European Parliamentary and local elections, the [Tower Hamlets] Returning Officer did not meet elements of performance standards 1 and 2. Performance standard 1 relates to voters and the need for them to have confidence that their vote will be counted in the way they intended. Performance standard 2 relates to those who want to stand for election and the need for candidates to ...
I have received the following proposal of projects from the Council's District Engineer for spending of the Acocks Green ward minor highways works budget. If you have any comments please let me know: 1. Roberts road near junction of Oxford road – Double kerbing to prevent parking on grass verge. 2. Bus cage markings on junction of Warwick Road Shirley Road - Bus interchange in Acocks Green Village. 3. Pemberley Road - Extending the 'ambulance only' bays and introducing 2 x additional Disabled bay markings. 4. Olton Boulevard East, between Hyron Hall Road and Dolphin Lane - Double kerbing to ...
This year conference was the most attended, compared to previous years. I myself attended conference for a day or two. As a student I did find it somewhat grudging to pay nearly £500 for three days to attend. I did however not find it massively damaging to my wallet, this is not the case for many members of the party. Due to the fact I could afford to go (and as a voting rep) it meant that I as an individual had more of a voice than those who couldn't travel to Bournemouth. One member one vote passed which is ...
People have been requesting this clip. Click below for the three minutes of Tim's conference speech when he spoke about refugees. The video starts when the passage starts. The passage ends at 31'32 with a standing ovation and then the video continues with the rest of the speech if you want to see it. * Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist in Newbury and West Berkshire. He is part of the Liberal Democrat Voice team and blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Saturday: This seems familiar because we've seen this story play out before: the Doctor going alone to face his absolutely final death, after one final farewell party; the romp through the back-catalogue of places we've seen and monsters we recognise; the time-twisting trap. It's the start of Series Six, the end of Series Seven, and several times in between. It's the Wedding of Let's Kill Hitler Again with the Time of the Impossible Moon. Yet I love how this show brings me a whole new existential horror: dare I pronounce it "good" until I've seen how it resolves next week? ...
The EU referendum date hasn't been announced yet - but the campaigns on both sides are gearing up. The umbrella 'Yes' campaign has launched a home page and is (quickly, I imagine) gathering email addresses and other details of those who want to remain in the European Union. You can follow them on Twitter and like the page on Facebook to keep updated.
Building the green economy to take Britain forwards sustainably. Improved support for victims of domestic abuse. Better access to vocational and further education. Providing sanctuary and support to those fleeing conflict and drought. We can (I suspect mostly) agree that these are good aims for us as a party, and that Lib Dems back in government would work hard to deliver on them. But they all cost money. One of the great political successes of the Cameron-Osborne Conservative party has been its relentless narrative on the economy. That Labour 'failed to mend the roof when the sun was shining'. That ...
Free at last... Radio Free Europe has announced that, according to Russia's Federal Security Service, a deal has been cut between the Estonian and Russian governments to exchange the kidnapped and imprisoned Estonian security officer, Eston Kohver, for convicted Russian spy Aleksei Dressen. If this is true, and it seems credible, then this is very good news for Eston Kohver and his family, and, whilst one assumes that a Russian spy gets away with his crimes as a result, it does offer an opportunity to slightly ratchet down tensions in the Baltics. Of course, that does rather depend on whether ...
Sat 26th
11:32
Corbynistas: preparing for a bit of a disappointment, or the inevitability of electoral politics?
The news that John McDonnell, Labour's new Shadow Chancellor, has said that his party will support George Osborne's so-called "fiscal charter" is, perhaps, the first sign that things have not changed as much as those flocking to Jeremy Corbyn's scarlet banner might have hoped. Yes, he does go on to say that, if in charge, he would tackle the deficit by very different means, ensuring that low and middle income earnings would have their burden eased, but, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, and the evidence of the actual policies is a bit thin still. And, there ...
If one looks at the government website on low carbon technologies, from July one will find a flurry of activity. All of this can be summed up in the government claim of controlling the cost of renewable energy. You have probably heard that the power supplier Drax has announced yesterday morning they are pulling out of the carbon capture scheme, only one of two large-scale experiments (the other being in Peterhead), as a response to government cuts on renewable energy - in this case biomass fuel. Likewise, support for small scale (less than 5MW) solar electrical generation are being withdrawn, ...
[IMG: TBR_LEC_100715elephant_01] When money is tight, which it certainly is across the public sector these days, spending over £300,000 of that scare public money on these at best dubious pieces of artwork makes you wonder what planet those who thought they were a good idea live on!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Htlsbmd00 [IMG: Thanks to Cllr. Mike Booth for pointing me in the direction of this excellent video – see link above – of one of that very last appearances of the Avro Vulcan at an airshow. There are some great shots in this video of the Vulcan, the Red Arrows, Southport and the Sefton Coast and quite a bit of patriotic music. Well worth watching, thanks Mike.
An awful lot seems to have happened on the housing policy front this week. Or at least the volume of housing talk has increased considerably. We started the week with Brandon Lewis announcing that the Government wants to see a million new homes by 2020. But the Government then clarified that this doesn't constitute anything as ambitious as a target. Nor does it appear they are proposing any significant new strategies, plans or actions to increase the likelihood that a million new homes might appear in the next four years. There was some reference to making it easier for people ...
With a hat-tip to Mark Pack, here is the result of the internal Liberal Democrat party election to select the order of candidates for our London Assembly list: 1.Caroline Pidgeon (incumbent) 2.Emily Davey 3.Merlene Emerson (elevated from 5th to 3rd due to ethnic diversity rules) 4.Rob Blackie 5.Stephen Knight (incumbent) 6.Zack Polanski 7.Duwayne Brooks 8.Dawn Barnes 9.Annabel Mullin 10.Marisha Ray 11.Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett 12.Ben Mathis 13.Pauline Pearce 14.Teena Lashmore 15.Brian Haley 16.Mark Platt Number of eligible voters: 9,462 Total number of votes cast: 3,755 Turnout: 39.7% * Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist in Newbury and West Berkshire. He is ...
[IMG: Welcome to the new Liberal Democrat database system.] Welcome to the new Liberal Democrat database system. Questions about how the various Liberal Democrat databases do, or don't, work together came up frequently at Bournemouth, including in the session I chaired on future campaign techniques. Why do political campaigns handle data so badly?If you want to make me wince and aren't into physical violence nor have an alligator to hand, ask me about cases I've come across of political campaigns or parties losing key data about voters. more Good use of data is vital, and sharing of data between different ...
Sat 26th
08:40
The person who will lead the Tories into the next general election will most likely be.....
Speculation mounts as to who will be the next leader of the Conservative Party. Most think Osborne has it in the bag; others think (or fear) some outsider, possibly from the right of the party, could snatch it away from the chancellor. However, upon reflection, I think the person most likely to lead them into the next general election, in 2020 if the Fixed Term Parliament Act isn't revoked at some point, will be......David Cameron. To those who doubt this is even technically a possibility: yes, he told James Landale whilst standing in a kitchen (a prominent motif of the ...
The photograph below shows the Post Office which stood at the junctions of Dundee's Meadowside and Euclid Crescent, with the fence and bushes in the grounds of Dundee High School to the right. The postmaster in 1902, shortly before the area was redeveloped for D. C. Thomson to plans by to plans by Niven & Wigglesworth, a London company, was George H. Gibb, who lived at Hermonhill in Perth Road. On weekdays the office was open from 6.45am until 9pm, with the sale of stamps continuing until 11pm. In its role as a savings bank, business was carried out between ...
tempus31 makes some AMAZING posters. I like the Red Dwarf blueprint especially Also this one: Proposals for Calderldale schools to sing the national anthem every day - oh good LORD Children! You must conform! CONFORM HARDER! Bloody tories. Functioning 'mechanical gears' seen in nature for the first time Damn you @TheWritingDesk, why must you tempt me so? Mind you I'd not put these in a precious pen... Is the greater Yorkshire devolution deal on its way? Karma Police: From Facebook to porn, GCHQ surveillance tool tracked browsing history of every web user Major UKIP Donor Says Party's Only MP ...
Congratulations to Lee Medlicott, whose Disco Doughnuts continue to lead the LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League after Week 6, with 341 points. The gap has narrowed, though – he's only a little ahead of Paul Revell's Sock Monsters (329). Just over 50 points separate the top 10. But let's also hear it for three players outside the top 10: Oliver Garner's Balustrade Hazard had the best week's performance, with 73 points. Honourable mentions go to George Stanton's Hilperton United and Anthony Martinelli's Caius V, with 72 and 70 points respectively. [IMG: ldv week 6] There are 217 players in total and ...
The Spectator reports on an extraordinary spat at the UKIP Conference yesterday in which they say that the party's one and only MP, Douglas Carswell was accused of being 'borderline autistic with mental illness wrapped in' by the party's donor and founder of the Leave.EU campaign Arron Banks and of having 'residual loyalty' to his Conservative colleagues by Ukip leader Nigel Farage. They say that the row between the three men erupted after Farage claimed on the conference stage that he would be the man to make the campaign to leave the EU a 'united force'. After the speech, he ...
On Monday I spent an enlightening day at Lib Dem conference. I've been mulling over events then and the various media reports and analysis for the week and although the majority are positive about the party's future I'm less sure. The lack of corporate sponsors and the wide open spaces of the exhibition areas might have suggested a party on its knees - but the stories of hundreds of first time delegates and new found confidence were only slightly exaggerated by party bigwigs. But, but but... The Trident debate was a great traditional political occasion - more than a thousand ...
