They don't make children's television like this any more. I can remember Christopher Trace, who presented the show from 1958 to 1967. He was dropped in part for bedding a 19-year-old during a Blue Peter summer expedition to Norway. Biddy Baxter did not approve of That Sort of Thing. Trace was exiled to BBC East in Norwich, which was still broadcasting in black and white as late as 1973. According to a BBC profile, he was Charlton Heston's body double in Ben Hur.
[IMG: greenham] "You need hands", wrote Max Bygraves. Since New Year's Eve these words have rung very true for me. I tripped while running on that day. But I didn't trip in any old place. I tripped right in front of a (disused) nuclear weapons bunker and Star Wars film backdrop (just near the site of my photo above). Well, if you're going to trip, why not do it in style?! I was able to break my fall with my hands. But they took a bit of a battering and are somewhat sore. One of them showed a tiny possible ...
Embed from Getty Images 2015 was a bit of a devil of a year. We lost Charles Kennedy. That was, of course, an immensely sad blow for Charles' family and friends. It was a shattering and tragic blow for the Liberal Democrats as a party. Unexpectedly, it brought home what a treasure he was to the party. All that is decent, humourous, humane, human and passionate about our party can be summed up in the words: "Charles Kennedy". I've also lost, or heard bad news about, several dear friends, colleagues and acquaintances, all cut short in their prime. Upon hearing ...
[IMG: A smiley-faced yellow person stands out in a crowd holding a sign reading Thank You] A smiley-faced yellow person stands out in a crowd holding a sign reading Thank You Here are the five posts on this blog that recorded the most hits between October and December 2015: Housing: what crisis? (23rd Nov) Housing and the Autumn Statement (27th Nov) Why is Owen Jones so annoying? (4th July 2013) Social care: an augury of the shape of housing things to come? (8th Nov) Constitutional 'crisis' (29th Oct) For the first time in quite a while my post about OJ ...
The four West of England Councils are currently consulting on the Joint Spatial Plan Issues and Options document and Joint Transport Study between 9th November 2015 and 29th January 2016 Further information and links to all consultation documents can be found here: It is important that comments are fed back. Currently thanks to the failure of the Bristol Mayor to address housing issues adequately they are looking for the rest of us to take their housing – could be several thousand for us.
although most urban communities in B&NES are covered by 20 mph there are still a lot of myths spread about the benefits or difficulties. click on to the link for details about the reality – 20splenty webpage
The Flood Mitigation and creation of new public space that my Cabinet developed over the last 4 years will now start in January. This will enable new employment space and new homes to be built and in the light of recent floods elsewhere should be secure and more as it is designed to withstand the extreme predictions that are being forecast. Bath & North East Somerset Council and the Environment Agency will begin work on the next phase of the Bath Quays Waterside project in January. Construction work will be phased over the next two years and, when completed, will ...
There is an edition of Meeting Myself Coming Back currently available on the BBC iPlayer in which Paddy Ashdown looks back on his career with the help of some archive recordings. It was first broadcast in 2012 when we still hoped the voters might reward us for entering government at a time of severe economic difficulty. As it turned out, in politics (as in the rest of life) no good deed goes unpunished. One of the recordings comes from 1983 when the Liberator spread above was not not only on the front page of The Times but was also the ...
Embed from Getty Images "We're doomed The Dad's Army story" is a wonderful BBC comedy drama about the evolution of the much-loved comedy classic. I recommend watching it, if you missed it. It's available on BBC iPlayer here for the next 25 days. It's a great programme which offers some interesting insights into the show's development. It has a marvellous cast, notably John Sessions as Arthur Lowe. Share
One of the projects that has been developing over the last four years is a major new education centre to enhance the Roman Baths experience. I am delighted that the new administration is continuing with this project. Members of the public will be able to find out more about plans for the new Archway Centre in Bath at an exhibition in January. The drop-in exhibition will be held in the Kingston Room in the Pump Room complex, from January 7 – 9, 11am to 4pm. There will also be a presentation on January 8, at 6.30pm. Those who attend will ...
I spend quite a lot of time on trains, some of it entirely voluntarily. After all, I like trains. Berlin to Bratislava, Brussels to Copenhagen, Stuttgart to Zagreb are just three of the journeys I've made in recent years. And, when Ros was Party President, we spent a lot of time on trains. So, I do understand a bit about our railway system, and about how other ones work. And, as my own local franchise is currently in the bidding phase, it is of keen interest to me how the system works. So, as we're in that week, once a ...
[IMG: Miriam] OK. An apology for bare-faced clickbait, as well as a whole slew of excuses for actually, physically, buying the Daily Mail, are necessary: I couldn't find a copy of i or The Times at Nero's, so I was reduced to reading their free copy of the Daily Mail in a sort of post-modern ironist sort of way. I saw this "story" and thought it would provide an innocent scintilla of amusement for an otherwise bored LDV reader. In an attempt at mobile-detox, I had left my mobile at home. I therefore didn't have a camera to take a ...
[IMG: Miriam] OK. An apology for bare-faced clickbait, as well as a whole slew of excuses for actually, physically, buying the Daily Mail, are necessary: I couldn't find a copy of i or The Times at Nero's, so I was reduced to reading their free copy of the Daily Mail in a sort of post-modern ironist sort of way. I saw this "story" and thought it would provide an innocent scintilla of amusement for an otherwise bored LDV reader. In an attempt at mobile-detox, I had left my mobile at home. I therefore didn't have a camera to take a ...
I eventually succumbed to my gadget cravings over Christmas and spent the princely sum of £4 on a Raspberry Pi Zero(*). This has enabled me to re-run the Whetstone double precision FORTRAN benchmarks that I'd previously tried out on my original model B and the Pi 2 last year. My Pi Zero with a 1964 penny coin for scale ... ...
Wow! What a year 2015 was! It is staggering to think that just 12 short months ago we were in coalition. Now we have eight MPs. Despite that Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour party, leaving us with a centre-left vacuum to move into. Coalition was by no means perfect. The vast majority of members and voters can agree on that. I believe tuition fees was a big mistake. It was wrong to go back on a key commitment in the manifesto. We most a lot of trust after that and we paid a heavy price in ...
From Matthew Goodwin and Caitlin Milazzo's excellent Ukip: inside the campaign to redraw the map of British politics: [IMG: Footnote from Ukip - inside the campaign to redraw the map of British politics] More seriously, one of the reasons behind the Liberal Democrat History Group and its Journal is to help document for future generations of historians some of the information that otherwise slips through the cracks of history because it is never written down and preserved. When did the first tactical voting bar chart appear on a political leaflet?Lib Dems, and before them the Liberals, are famous for using ...
In a little reported step on Tuesday 22 December, the United Nations General Assembly, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention, adopted a resolution demanding Palestinian sovereignty over natural resources under Israeli occupation and the UK actually voted in favour! The Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted in 1949 following the Second World War and the forced migrations of many peoples that occurred during and immediately after it. Article 49 of that 4th Geneva Convention clearly states: ""The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Israel ratified this Convention in 1951. In ...
We already know that the Government tried to slip out lots of bad news (including crucial evidence of the hardship caused by the Bedroom Tax) in a giant Take out the Trash day before Christmas, but the Financial Conduct Authority used Hogmanay to slip out the fact that it wasn't going to bother with publishing a review into banking culture. Apparently it "wouldn't help." Try telling that to the people who suffered as a result of one of the worst crashes in history. Tim Farron was on this one straight away and ended up getting quoted pretty widely. He said: ...
We wanted to honour those Liberal Democrats that our readers felt were true stars of 2015, which has been one of the toughest years in our party's history. Over the past few days, we have sought out nominations and now have a rather impressive list that we'll be publishing in instalments during this week. Here is the fifth part. Their names come with the comments made about the contribution they have made. Some are parliamentarians, some are councillors, most are grassroots activists. Let's celebrate them and the many others who are fighting fto keep that Liberal Democrat flame alive. These ...
[I forgot to include a spoiler warning. Apologises to anyone who read this and then regretted it] The seasonal benevolence of the BBC is impressive. For Christmas, they gave us both more Dr Who and more Sherlock. Even though the residents of 221B Baker Street were back they were not quite as we are used [...]
Those of you who grew up in the UK around the same time as I did will surely remember this fun BBC series, shown on Saturday mornings in the 1970s. It concerns the adventures of seven kids whose den is a disused double decker bus somewhere near Watford (actually of course Elstree studios). Here are the absurdly catchy opening titles: Here Come The Double Deckers may not be Great Art, but I think that it is overdue for an episode-by-episode analysis of the kind we've seen for many cult shows. (An interesting coincidence - 17 episodes were made in total; ...
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long had one of the highest levels of capital punishment implementation in the world, but this year it has really excelled itself by welcoming in the New Year by executing 47 individuals today in various parts of the country. The official reason is that these people were convicted of [...]
Bridgend Council is currently consulting on introducing monthly black bag collections that would see residents having to store their non-recyclable waste longer before it is collected. The council argue that the change will help them meet their recycling targets, but I think that the proposal is more about saving money and that it will cause huge environmental problems. We have already seen statistics that show a 58% increase in fly-tipping in the county borough since 2012. I believe that reducing the frequency of black bag collection to monthly will see a bigger increase in fly-tipping and a big rise in ...
I was lucky enough to visit Guildhall in London a couple of months back and spent a very enjoyable afternoon being shown round and hearing about its fascinating history. I had a lovely lunch, too. While in the dining room, I saw Jeremy Browne having a big lunch meeting. It wasn't long after he'd been appointed as the City of London's representative to the EU, a role which is right up his street after his stint as a foreign office minister during the Coalition. Sky News reports that he's heading off on a tour of EU capitals to showcase the ...
Just looked through the New Years Honours list. Alongside the predictable lists of current and former politicians, businessmen etc - there were some that really stood out...
[IMG: TOP10] Blogging around here has been a bit different this year. For various reasons I've only managed to publish around 50-60% of the usual number of posts. Given the much reduced level of activity, the fact that hits on the blog were only down 10% or so doesn't seem so bad: when I got round to publishing something it's been read by more people, on average. I am, as ever, hugely grateful to everyone who takes the time to read what I post. The top 10 for this year features three posts originally published in 2012 or 2013. The ...
[IMG: Poll piechart] The latest quarterly update to my spreadsheet of opinion poll data since 1943 is now up at: http://www.markpack.org.uk/opinion-polls/ You can also sign up on that page to get email notifications about future updates. Aside from another three months of data, this update includes: A correction to one of the final 1945 polls (thank you Will Jennings). Minor updates to polls from the 1970-74 Parliament, such as the newspaper they were published in. An extra ORC poll from October 1974 along with an exit poll from that election too. An Opinium poll referred to by The Observer from ...
Great news that Southport will yet again be hosting a County Championship match in 2016. The match is against Durham on the 16th, 17th, 18th, & 19th of July at Birkdale Cricket Ground. [IMG: Glen Capple - LCC at Birkdale r] Pictured above is Glen Chapple – Lancashire County cricketer. An all-rounder who represented England in a single One Day International, as well as performing well for Lancashire over many years. He bowls right-arm fast-medium, and is a right-handed batsman.- pictured here at Southport's Birkdale ground in May 2015. On this occasion he was not playing in Lancs County Championship ...
Sat 2nd
09:44
My back pages: reflections on Hungary, Britain, liberal democracy and the European Union
The following is an original draft of an essay I did for the European Liberal Forum book, "Member State Violation Against Democratic Principles – What Can the EU Do?", detailing my experiences in Budapest in the summer of 2015. As 2016 commences, I thought I might share it with you. In June of 2015, I was invited to Budapest to speak on a panel. The topic was based around the changing nature of the EU; as I live in a country currently in the throes of its own European inspired existential crisis, the chance to do so in Orban's Hungary ...
I'm suggesting five New Year's resolutions that Liberal Democrats should make for 2016. Here's the second. Stop fighting each other This party has been incredibly resilient over the past five difficult years. We've mostly chummed along (albeit with heavy hearts) and got on with the job. However, there have been a few flashpoints, mainly online between a few people. There's one group of people who broadly think that the Coalition was evil, and that the party was taken over by pseudo-Tories hiding behind the Orange Book and that everyone who thinks differently should bog off and join the Tories. Heavens, ...
[IMG: Plimsoll Line (http://www.flickr.com/photos/brinkmann/509192200/)] All are welcome to attend the Folkestone's Plimsoll Day celebrations on Saturday 13th February 2016 at St Martin's Church, Horn Street, Cheriton CT20 3JJ. 2.30pm Short service and wreath-laying on the grave of Samuel Plimsoll. 3pm in the church this year's PLIMSOLL MEMORIAL LECTURE - The Men Plimsoll Rescued: The Forgotten Heroes of the Merchant Marine. Delivered by Richard Woodman, distinguished maritime historian, author of a five-volume history of the Merchant Navy, and winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Prize 2014. The event is free, but there will be a retiring collection in aid of the Folkestone ...
It has never happened before, and it may never happen again, but, for a few days, I have been top of the Liberal Democrat Voice Fantasy Football League. And, so that the moment is preserved for posterity, here is the proof. Creeting Gentry FC didn't get off to a fantastic start - I wasn't paying any real attention to it for the first few weeks. But, since I cleared out the passengers in week six, it's been pretty much non-stop improvement. Astute use of my bench bonus in week seventeen, brought me into the challenging pack, and a fortunate choice ...
When the Waverley Route (Carlisle to Edinburgh) was down for closure in the 1960's a young Liberal MP stood alongside his constituents and fought to try to save it. Alas the dirty deed was done anyway, only for some of it to reopen earlier this year. A trip to the National Railway Museum in York recently and what do I find but a graphic panel all about the closing of the Waverley Route and photos of that young MP and his fellow campaigners. Here it is:- [IMG: David Steel and the Waverley Route] Please click on the photo to enlarge ...
Due to British Telecom cable duct laying works, the following roadworks will take place in the near future :Temporary traffic lights at the South Tay Street/Nethergate junction for a week from Saturday 9th January.Southbound inside lane of North Marketgait closed from Wednesday 6th January for 5 days.Neither of these roadworks requires a full road closure.
Congratulations to erstwhile LDV day editor Mark Valladares, whose modestly titled Creeting Gentry FC (1,128 points) start 2016 in pole position in the LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League after Week 19. It's a fiercely contested position, though — just 37 points separate the top 10. But let's also hear it for three players outside the top 10, who were the highest scoring managers in December: Michael Brown's Mike's Dream Team v5 (372), Benjamin Andrew's Pleased to Beat-chu (363) and Steven Garrett Thirteen striders (362). [IMG: ldv ffl 19] There are 219 players in total and you can still join the league ...
How to be a lady in the streets & a Haunted Click Tower in the sheets "it's all about balance. And swarms of bats." Everybody else is doing Year In Review posts, so I have too. People who swear have bigger vocabularies, study finds - welcome news from the Toronto Sun Screening sperm donors for autism? As an autistic person, I know that's the road to eugenics Simon Danczuk vacates the moral high ground George Lucas blasts new Star Wars film for being enjoyable and popular Do you really know how much immigration your local area has? Check with this ...
With a referendum on our continued membership of the European Union looming and expected this year, the Financial Times sets out the 'hard-headed case' as to why our membership should continue: This newspaper has consistently made the case for staying in. Not from any romantic attachment to European federalism but from the hard-headed calculation that Britain's prosperity and security are advanced by pooling resources and, sometimes, sovereignty with its European partners. The UK's global interests depend on the preservation of global rules. In an era when order is too often making way for disorder, the defence of the values that ...
The end of a year and the start of the next isn't really that big a deal in terms of automatic changes whether large or small; we are still the same people and it is very much a case of new year, same me. Realistically, we shouldn't need the end of the year to be...
