Gloves? Check. Hat? Check. The scarf my mother knitted for me whilst I was at university? Check. I was properly kitted out for a night of passion and high drama at Needham Market's very own 'Field of Dreams', Bloomfields. It was, need I say, pretty cold. Having walked from the station, it seemed that I might not have picked the most attractive game of the season, and as the visitors from VCD Athletic don't have many fans of their own, it was soon apparent that the good people of Needham Market had opted for a night in front of a ...
The Guardian reports that human rights groups have expressed concern at a major rise in UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Last month Saferworld and Amnesty commissioned a legal opinion from Professor Philippe Sands QC and other lawyers which concluded that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia, in the context of its military intervention and bombing campaign in Yemen, were breaking national, EU and international law. UK arms sales in the three-month period from July to September 2015 for the export category that covers missiles, rockets and bombs amounted to £1,066,216,510, the BIS documents show. They were sold under five ...
Embed from Getty Images On New Year's Day I visited Nottingham and in particular Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which sits beneath the rock surmounted by Nottingham Castle. In 1831 the Castle, by then the residence of the Dukes of Newcastle, was burnt down in pro-Reform riots. In the 1870s it was rebuilt and became the city's art gallery. When this photograph was taken around 1865 it was still derelict. Note too the long vanished canal basin, Gordon's Wharf, in the foreground.
David Miranda (Credit: The Guardian) Many of you will have been paying close attention to a controversial use of powers under the Terrorism Act 2000, which followed-on from the Snowdon leaks of classified NSA files. A man called David Miranda, partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, had obtained on a USB stick encrypted files in connection with the leak, and was detained at Heathrow airport under what are known as the "Schedule 7 powers" of the Terrorism Act 2000. The factual background of the case is quite neatly summarised by Lord Justice Laws in the Divisional Court, and repeated by the ...
No doubt some people will wonder why, after last month's filibuster by the ruling Labour Group, I still plan to put forward to council a motion calling for withdrawal of the proposals on teaching assistants' pay issued in November, proposals which involve pay cuts of 10 – 25%. The answer is straightforward. As long as those proposals are on the table, the consultation will be about how much teaching assistants' pay is to be cut by, not about how we can address equality issues without slashing the pay of teaching assistants. That's not acceptable to me. The proposals will have ...
Paddy Ashdown has been talking to the Guardian about that moment when he first saw the exit poll on Election Night. [IMG: rally paddy 01] To be honest I saw the poll at the bottom of the screen about 10 seconds before Andrew Neil turned to me and I thought to myself 'oh shit'," he said. "Then I had an option. I could either say 'that's very interesting and wouldn't it be troublesome for us', in which case the entire Liberal Democrat night would fall apart from thereon ... or I could brave it out and say 'I'll eat my ...
The independent inquiry into the handling of allegations made against Greville Janner which was commissioned last year by the Director of Public Prosecutions issued its report today. That inquiry was conducted by the retired High Court Judge Sir Richard Henriques. You can download the full report from the Crown Prosecution Service website, and the Guardian has a summary of his its findings: The report found:The decision not to charge Janner in 1991 was wrong because there was enough evidence against him to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for offences of indecent assault and buggery. In addition, the police investigation ...
Margaret Beckett's report on what she believes to be the reasons for its defeat in last year's general election has been published by the Labour Party. BBC News has a summary. There is an article about it on Liberal Democrat Voice, which gives in passing a dispiriting glimpse of the tactics we used to hold on to Sheffield Hallam. It also has a noteworthy comment from Liberator's Mark Smulian: At least Labour has published its report. I understand the equivalent Lib Dem one was released only to Federal Executive members on paper, which they were obliged to return at the ...
Readers of this blog may know that the RMT union has launched a 'keep the guards' campaign following it being suggested that the new fleet of trains for Merseyrail will be/could be driver only operation. I have covered this issue previously as it is one which many see as being a negative step that does not need to be taken by Merseyrail, the private sector operator of Liverpool's electrified local railway network or Merseytravel the public sector authority which oversees Merseyrail. When Merseytravel were approached by Radio Merseyside below is how they responded following the launch of the RMT campaign ...
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)was taken over last night by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain for their annual awards ceremony, when the people who write the scripts of programmes people watch on TV or films or plays or even video games get a chance to step into the limelight. The ALCS, one [...]
[IMG: Squeeze] While promoting the merits of your candidate is at the core of Lib Dem campaigns, a vital part of the campaign is to squeeze the votes of 3rd, 4th or subsequent parties to back your candidate rather than your main opponent. Most people have a party that would normally be their first choice of who [...]
Dame Margaret Beckett a former deputy and acting leader of the Labour Party has reported her findings on the reasons behind Labour's loss of the election in 2015. We need to understand this dispassionately, alongside the reasons for our great losses, some of which will overlap. Firstly, five reasons that Beckett doubts. As the new leadership plan for 2020, they should approach with caution a number of theories for our defeat that sound plausible but need to be nuanced and substantiated: "We had the wrong policies." In fact our individual polices polled well, the issue was the difficulty in creating ...
Tue 19th
15:55
City official resigns after press conference with fake snow and middle-aged man in a wig and dress
[IMG: Sue Stenhouse (centre) holds a press conference with a man in a wig and dress pretending to be a woman (right).] Sue Stenhouse (centre) holds a press conference with a man in a wig and dress pretending to be a woman (right). Bizarre news from Cranston, Rhode Island, where city official Sue Stenhouse has resigned: A city official who wanted to include an elderly woman in a photo op about a snow shoveling program persuaded a middle-aged man to dress up in a wig, earrings, lipstick and a dress. The man stood next to the mayor of Cranston at ...
What kind of labour market policy is best at improving living standards for the poorest workers? Both of the major parties now argue that at least part of the answer lies in significantly raising the national minimum wage. Indeed, the government has proposed increasing the current top rate of £6.70 per hour by 50p from [...]
One of the excellent new John Moores' University Campuses I have today written to the Vice Chancellors of Liverpool's 3 Universities asking them to establish a 'Think and Do' tank in Liverpool. I told them, "Liverpool benefits greatly from having ... Continue reading →
It gets a bit wearing sometimes. It was a narrow failure to convince fellow Liberal Democrats to stop fudging over Trident renewal. I was watching an online feed when the vote was taken at conference. When it was realised it was close, many changed their minds and swung behind the leadership. Perhaps given the current Liberal Democrat situation, many would see that all this is academic. I believe it is a sign that that party is still following opinion of what the leadership thinks will make us electable. If one lesson from the current political landscape are to be learned ...
Today Tom Brake introduced a bill under the 10 minute rule to limit the powers of ministers to block freedom of information requests and extend the coverage of the Freedom of Information Act to contractors carrying out duties commissioned by the public sector. Today I've introduced a 10 minute rule bill that aims to extend the remit of the Freedom of Information Act #extendfoi — Tom Brake MP (@thomasbrake) January 19, 2016 Tom said Strong FOI legislation is a good barometer for the health of any democracy, any attempt to dilute Freedom of Information legislation represents a threat to our ...
Those of us who are strong supporters of the Human Rights Act will be bemused by this article in the Independent, which records that the Government is to double the Foreign Office budget for promoting human rights. They say that Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond will announce the creation of a new £10.6m annual Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy to promote democracy and the rule of law in more than 60 countries. They add that the new fund is expected to target projects in areas with poor human rights records such as Iraq, China and the Gulf. This ...
The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above The tragic circumstances surrounding the fatal fire in Maghull's Bridge Farm Drive a couple of days ago are seemingly very odd and it has led to some questioning of Merseyside Fire & Rescue and the way they dealt with the initial call out from a neighbouring household.
The Liverpool Echo has the stories – see links above There is no doubt in my mind that Sefton Borough has long had a problem with anti-social people riding scrambler bikes in our beautiful places and now even in an indoor shopping centre! That's not to say that Merseyside Police have been ignoring the problem because they have had a number of successes in tracking the dangerous riders down. In the East Parishes part of the Borough the tow path of the Leeds Liverpool Canal, the Cheshire Lines Path and Jubilee Woods all suffer from scrambler bikes being ...
I have a simple approach to politics, at heart I am pragmatic and try not to place ideology in the way of the best possible outcome. New Labour in the late 1990's was perfect for me and so I joined the party and I became a local councillor the day after Labour lost the 2010 election, became a Labour Group leader, and remained a councillor until the 2015 election. By then, I was feeling less connected to the party politically and I stood down. The Ed Miliband era was tortuous for me. I found pockets of policy I agreed with, ...
Note from district council The 2nd phase of woodland improvement works will be taking place in the Ashley and Clarence Wards between Camp Road Bridge and Ashley Road as detailed below. This work is part of the Greenspace Action Plan (GAP) for the Alban Way. We will do our best to keep disruption to a minimum but it will be necessary [...]
Today Stonewall presents its annual list of the UK's top employers for LGBT staff. The "Workplace Equality Index" is one of the organisations key programmes these days, after 25 years of campaigning for, and sometimes against, legal changes to establish either lesbian and gay or LGBT equality. Bisexual exclusion in LGB or LGBT spaces is nothing new, though there is an encouraging trend to address it in workplace staff networks. At BiPhoria, the UK's longest-running bisexual organisation, we've been working with employers and voluntary organisations on bisexual inclusion since the late 1990s, when the more switched-on groups started to address ...
Liberal Democrats and Social Democrats have a very wide range of opinions, including economics. However, despite our differences, it's possible to discuss them in a good-natured, honest way, without polemic. The time to reduce the deficit has been a matter of huge controversy over the last six years. Paul Krugman is, perhaps, the best known advocate of continuing stimulus. In 2012, he attacked the UK deficit reduction programme as 'deeply destructive'. He said, "Give me a stronger economy and I'll turn into a fiscal hawk. But not now". The deficit reduction between 2010 and 2012 was certainly controversial. Some Keynsians ...
Now pedestrian crossings might not always make roads safer, so here is a possible way to do it with music: I'm not sure I'd hear the road over the typical blare of my stereo. But who cares? This is absolutely brilliant! pic.twitter.com/UtXfIXtLer — Peter Ubel (@peterubel) January 13, 2016 Here's a bit more on the background to what Japan has done with musical roads: The system was the brainchild of Shizuo Shinoda, who accidentally scraped some markings into a road with a bulldozer before driving over them and realising that they helped to produce a variety of tones. [The Guardian] ...
South Glos Council is consulting on an option to change the 84 and 86 bus service to provide a more frequent and reliable service. The 84 would operate an hourly circular route in an anti-clockwise direction (Wotton - Charfield - Cromhall - Wickwar - Chipping Sodbury - Yate - Chipping Sodbury - Horton - Hawkesbury Upton - Hillesley - Alderley - Wotton)There would be a new 85 service operating an hourly circular route as above but in a clockwise direction.The 86 service would operate between Yate and Longwell Green, going via Coalpit Heath, Greenacres Park, Kingswood and New Cheltenham on ...
Tue 19th
09:26
A new book by a friend reminds me of how laws made in the grip of hysteria can have unintended conse...
A new book by David Boyle entitled Scandal: How Homosexuality Became a Crime has just been published. It is about how a sex scandal in Dublin in 1884 led directly to homosexuality becoming a crime across the UK (sodomy was illegal already, but not any and all homosexual activity until the amendment passed in 1885 off the back of the scandal in Dublin the previous year made this so). This law was to stay on the books until 1967. In its time on the statutes, it caused the destruction of many men's lives, very memorably that of Alan Turing who ...
In my New Year post I did not write much about finance, but made some rather throwaway comments that the economy could take a turn for the worse in 2016. Having just read Martin Wolf's rather sanguine piece in the FT, I hadn't quite understood that my views were in line with conventional wisdom in the financial markets – and this not at all a position I like to be in. But pessimism is in, and reflected by lower share prices worldwide. This has filtered through to left wing commentators, like Will Hutton, who gleefully want to show that "austerity" ...
[IMG: Why the Tories won by Tim Ross - book cover] Within the first few pages of Tim Ross's Why the Tories won, the book's strengths are clear: lively writing based on senior sources and a constant reminder that the way to understand elections is not to focus in on the few weeks before polling day but instead on the years beforehand when the reputations of parties and leaders for competence, caring and ability are set. The book gives the impression of having been written in several separate chunks at different times, with some duplication between sections, but there is ...
They say that there is no war that is more difficult and emotionally draining than a civil war. So it is with ideas. When liberals and progressives fight conservatives, the battles are easy. Each is convinced of their own righteousness and, when they run out of arguments, can simply dismiss the other side as being either Neanderthal or degenerate and therefore not worthy of much consideration. Everyone can go to bed enveloped in their own warm glow of self-belief. Much more difficult are conflicting ideas that spring from the same ideology. Because resolution is difficult, these issues tend to get ...
Begin of rage. I am getting fed up with this. Can't I take Mel the Collie for a walk early in the morning without the risk of us both being run over by barely awake motorists who rush through red lights? Six days ago, I was so angry at a van hurtling out of Ludlow... Continue reading Rage at Ludlow motorists - wake up before you drive and maybe kill someone →
A number of residents have contacted me about the touch-screen bus information facility at the bus stop west of the Queen's Hotel. The touch screen is not working and I have reported this to the City Council requesting repair as soon as possible.
Richborough Estates have appealed against the refusal of plans for 137 homes off Foldgate Lane (15/02340/REF). This scheme is not in SAMDev, our plan for housing sites, but the developers are hoping that approval of 215 homes off Bromfield Road outside of SAMDev has set a precedent and a planning inspector will approve the Foldgate... Continue reading My case to the planning inspectorate against houses at Foldgate Lane →
Iron Maiden to release their own mobile game Why are there so few girls in children's books? - The Washington Post David Bowie: astronomers give the Starman his own constellation [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The tube at a standstill - why TfL stopped people walking up the escalators Clearing bottlenecks by standing still (tags: london ) Fifty years ago today, the United States of America dropped four nuclear bombs on Spain. *gulp* (tags: usa spain war ) A neuroscientist says there's a powerful benefit to exercise that is rarely discussed Yeah, I know... (tags: health lifehacking ) Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years Wow. (tags: australia biology ) Referendum madness Direct democracy's attractive flaws. (tags: netherlands eu democracy voting ) Carswell wrong on snooper rights Quelle surprise. (tags: ukpolitics eu humanrights ...
