Embed from Getty Images For months now, there have been repeated calls for the UK to take 3000 unaccompanied child refugees who have fled the Syrian conflict. Tim Farron has been pressing the Government to do so, going as far as tabling a Bill in Parliament. Most of the opposition parties in Parliament and its International Development Committee are in favour. Tomorrow's Observer suggests that action may soon be forthcoming: Amid growing expectation that an announcement is imminent, Downing Street said ministers were looking seriously at calls from charities, led by Save the Children, for the UK to admit at ...
As seems somehow appropriate, there are several different lists in circulating, each claiming to be the authentic tally of David Bowie's 100 favourite books. I'm using the one from www.davidbowie.com which seems most likely to be canonical. (One of the others has only 75 books on the list.) How many have you read? (I think you can vote with your Facebook or Twitter accounts.) View Poll: #2034458 *not sure about "Tadanori Yokoo"; Yokoo is an artist who doesn't seem to have published a book with his own name as the title. But it's in the official list. Any particular recommendations? ...
I have just updated my profile on They Work For You. A great website that lets you know how your MP votes and what they say in Parliament. I hadn't visited it since the general election so now I am subscribed to Ben Howlett and also Don in his new role in the Lords. Also added in Lord Strasburger and Jacob Rees-Mogg for good measure. Whilst doing this also filled in a survey for Ben Howlett on Elected Mayors. We agree on this at least that they are not a good idea.
Leicestershire's Conservative MPs were busy retweeting this photograph last week. It shows them and the Conservative leader of the county council Nick Rushton meeting the local government minister Marcus Jones to press the case for more generous funding for Leicestershire. The Leicester Mercury quoted Sir Edward Garnier, MP for Harborough: "The difficult financial situation for Leicestershire County Council means that unless we get an improved funding arrangement, the services that vulnerable people need the most will have to be cut. I know the Minister fully understands the case we made and took into account our concerns as Leicestershire MPs and ...
Embed from Getty Images The cool kids agree that this Labour Uncut article from the end of last year by Atul Hatwal got it about right: At the heart of the split is a long-running tension between two factions of the hard left: Socialist Action and the Labour Representation Committee. In the corner on the left is Socialist Action - a Trotskyist group most closely associated with Ken Livingstone with several of his advisers from his time as Mayor, either members or supporters. As Livingstone himself said, "Almost all of my advisers had been involved in Socialist Action," "It was ...
Embed from Getty Images It seems that every day there's a new reason to admire Canadian Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Guardian has a report of a panel session in Davos where he said that everyone should embrace feminism. He said that a more diverse team makes better decisions in both politics and business. I particularly liked the clip in the video in which he said that his wife had reminded him that he not only had to encourage his daughter into taking leadership roles, but also to talk to his sons about treating women properly. He also said ...
As a long standing supporter of a tax on sugary drinks, I was pleased to read today that food and drink manufacturers such as Coca-Cola and Kellogg's are promising to cut the sugar content in their products in advance of a Government decision on levying such a tax. The Telegraph reports that key players in the processed food industry say they will introduce a series of "unprecedented" series of measures of their own volition, which they claim will help reduce Britain's sugar consumption by a fifth: The measures include promises to avoid targeting the under-16s, as well as introducing smaller, ...
[IMG: members forum wordle] LibDemVoice has two parallel sites. The first is our public blog, the thing you're reading now. The second is our private members' forum, which only current Lib Dem members can access. If you're a member and want to chat with fellow party members about any issue that's on your mind, then why not sign up? In addition, you'll be included in our regular surveys' of party members' views. Here's some of the most active discussions this past 10 days: Local elections 2016: the Liberal Democrat battleground Electoral expenses by party Clegg commission: educational inequality by geography ...
This has been widely tipped as a potential Hugo finalist, and among the BSFA long list was second on both Goodreads and LibraryThing by number of owners, topping my statistics overall. I am not sure that it will go all the way. I generally liked it - it's very well rooted in its home culture, which in this case unusually is Poland, the creepy horror of the ancient forest and evil tree magic is very well done, and the narrator is well-drawn (there's a particularly good couple of chapters where she as a country girl tries to fit into court ...
Sat 23rd
15:15
Scottish Lib Dem Spring Conference agenda now online: Rennie's radical diversity motion to be debate...
The agenda for the Scottish Liberal Democrat Spring Conference to be held on Edinburgh on 26 and 27 February has been published and can be found online here. Traditionally, pre-election conferences are full of non-controversial items aimed at setting out the party's stall to the public. This agenda, by and large, follows that pattern with debates on opportunities for young people, public services, a plan to decentralise power, particularly to Scotland's island communities, better and fairer delivery of essential services like electricity and broadband in the Highlands. All of these are pretty much bread and butter issues for the party. ...
I wrote previously about how underwhelming the official Margaret Beckett review into Labour's general election campaign was. By contrast, the piece penned by Labour peer Spencer Livermore (a former colleague of mine at Blue Rubicon with a fearsomely tidy desk) for the New Statesman is vastly better and franker. Ironically, although as a senior figure in Labour's 2015 general election campaign Spencer might be tempted to go for the positive whitewashing, it is his account which is franker and more useful than the official inquest. His lessons are also applicable more widely than just the Labour Party: I have huge ...
Introducing Doctor Who - The Rescue... A poor orphaned waif with a forbidding guardian, waiting to see if their ship will ever come in. The sinister figure that terrorises her while claiming to be her protector. This is Doctor Who at its most Dickensian - set on an alien world four hundred years in the future. Maureen O'Brien debuts as the series' first 'new companion', to be comforted by William Hartnell's Doctor at his most delightful and menaced by Sydney Wilson's dastardly Koquillion (but it's not him who callously kills her pet). A small but perfectly formed story from 1965... ...
The media reporting of the tragic death of Dylan Seabridge, blaming the fact that he was home educated, is bringing back bad memories of 2009. Then Ed Balls commissioned the "Badman Review" into whether Home Education could be used to hide child abuse. Whilst the review found no evidence to link the two, it felt very much like Labour was out to get us, like the government was looking for a reason to attack home education in an illiberal way as only Labour could. More often than not, home education is seen as the problem, not the local authority's failure ...
Tim Farron has called on the Government to stop taking money from states with poor human rights records to train their military officers at the elite Sandhurst training college. He said to the Guardian: These Sandhurst sheikhs are sitting in our military academies, learning from our best and then taking these things back to regimes that repress their population and trample all over human rights. People will look at this and think why are we selling weapons to Saudi, training Bahrainis and then sitting there while they oppress their population. Shared military training with our allies is a fantastic resource, ...
The 'privilege' model of understanding the different life experiences that people tend to have according to where in the world or the UK they live, their gender identity, sexual orientation, skin colour and the like has been bouncing about for quite some time. It has some merit. One of the problems it runs into is the argument that "but not all [grouping] feel the benefit of this leg-up!" A neat way of exploring that is the notion of it being like playing a game and having different difficulty settings - you can still win, but it's like fighting harder opponents. ...
Human wickedness is a better argument for liberalism than human goodness. Liberals will often explain their liberalism by citing their optimistic view of human nature. Take this view propounded by liberal luminary Millicent Fawcett: Or more recently this view by Nick Clegg: Underpinning... [the liberal] attitude towards power is a particular liberal attitude towards [...]
Before I start: A reminder to friends in the Bristol area that Billie and Tiger are appearing tomorrow at the Watershed, 1 Canon's Road, Harbourside at 11.15 am. Episode 4: Starstruck (variously also referred to as Star-Struck and Star Struck) First shown: 3 October 1970 (US), 21 January 1971 (UK) Director: Harry Booth Writers: Harry Booth and Glyn Jones Appearing apart from the Double Deckers: David Lodge as 1st Security Man Hugh Walters as 2nd Security Man Liz Fraser as Zizi Bagor Bob Todd, Michael Fleming, Alec Bregonzi, Alan Rebbeck, Douglas Ridley as assorted film crew Plot Seeking autographs at ...
Kath Jones was a Lib Dem member of Lydiate Parish Council until she retired from it in 2011 after many years of service to the Lydiate community. If I recall correctly Kath had been a Parish Councillor since the 1980's so she certainly did more than her bit for Lydiate. [IMG: Kath is the lady on the far right of this photo which was taken in the former Orrell Arts Centre in Bootle.] Kath is the lady on the far right of this photo which was taken in the former Orrell Arts Centre in Bootle. So sad to hear of ...
Sat 23rd
11:15LibLink: Willie Rennie: Scottish Tories are a referendum themed tribute act, draped in union flag, s...
Willie Rennie has written a scathing attack on the Scottish Conservatives for the Scotsman newspaper. He accused Ruth Davidson's party of being nothing but a "referendum themed tribute act." In contrast, he set out a strong statement of the values the Liberal Democrats stood for: I want liberal-minded Yes voters to know they can vote for the Liberal Democrats because Scotland needs strong liberal voices in parliament to stand up for investment in opportunity through education and good health, to guarantee our civil liberties and to protect our environment. We need a strong outward-looking, internationalist, altruistic, tolerant, reformist, pro civil ...
An application has been submitted for the old BP garage site on Stafford Road. The plans are for a four-storey block at the front of the site and a three storey block to the rear comprising 29 residential units and two retail units. There will be 20 residential parking spaces provided and 8 commercial parking [...]
[IMG: Regular readers will understand the camels. Newer readers are lucky not to.] Regular readers will understand the camels. Newer readers are lucky not to. A regular theme running through my posts about how the Liberal Democrats are run is the paucity of communication within the party over how the party is run. Perhaps the best example of that recently was the English Party's strategy paper which set out to completely change the way the party's membership system work and campaign staffing is structured yet neither consulted widely amongst members before coming to conclusions nor then communicated widely about them. ...
Sat 23rd
09:45Kate Parminter: There should be compulsory community engagement before planning process begins
[IMG: Public consultation meeting photo by Craik Sustainable Living Project CCL FLickr] This week, Liberal Democrat peer Kate Parminter took place in a debate organised by the Town and Country Planning Association on the subject of planning for people. She emphasised the importance of engaging communities at every stage in the planning process: Parminter said a number of local authorities still have a problem with local plans and with giving planning permission by appeal. This does not, she said, offer any incentive or encouragement to local communities to "think that a neighbourhood plan is going to work for them because ...
One of the roads running through Balgay Cemetery I have recently received a number of constituents' concerns about pedestrian safety at Balgay Cemetery, Hill and Park. The following comment from a local resident is typical : "I would ... like to tell you about the speeding cars in Balgay Cemetery and the road leading up to the observatory, as I often walk in both places. These drivers need to be more careful as there are children about." I raised this with a senior manager in the Environment Department of the council who has responded positively as follows : "I can ...
[IMG: David Cameron visiting the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Crown Copyright] Britain's elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst is being paid £4.2m this year to train 105 overseas military officer cadets, many of whom come from Gulf states whose human rights records are regularly condemned, according to official figures. The government is facing calls to stop training "Sandhurst sheikhs" who return home to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to put into practice military techniques learned in Britain. Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, spoke out after figures released by the Ministry of Defence showed ...
www.flickr.com/photos/keith_page/24331457542/in/photostream/ There have been some excellent photos taken of the poppies that were until a few days ago outside St. Georges Hall in Liverpool. I took this one:- [IMG: Poppies 3] but of all the shots I have seen the one accessible via the link above is probably my personal favorite as it takes in a much wider vista than just the poppies and St Georges Hall. It was taken by Lydiate photographer Keith Page who happens to be a mate of mine and who continues to try to teach me about how to take a good photo. Not sure ...
There was an article in the Spectator late last week, authored by Dan Hannan, regarding what Brexit looks like as he sees it. I was excited – this is usually a topic the Eurosceptics run a mile from. And the piece was truly revealing. Hannan says that those campaigning for Britain to remain in the EU are being hysterical because we are basing our predictions of Brexit on a false premise. He says that if we left the EU we'd very obviously remain part of the EEA and the single market and so any suggestion that this wouldn't happen in ...
Sat 23rd
08:21
Knocking on doors – It's what politicians, religious sects and double glazing salespeople do.
[IMG: .facebook_1449922487747] This will amuse my political friends (of all colours) who have spent many a long hour knocking on doors. I have met many lovely people on doorsteps together with a very small minority who should be locked up for everyone's safety including their own! With thanks to Phil for the lead to this posting.
Cameron on Muslim women: shoddy and shameful Good on @RobinLustig. (tags: ukpolitics migration islam ) Moldova Needs Us to Support Reforms, Not Governments GMFUS comments. (tags: moldova ) Andy Duncan on his last conversation with David Hartwell Very moving. (tags: sf deaths )
How brutal cost cuts lie behind creation of 'newsroom of the future' at Johnston Press Problem is, it makes none of them worth buying. Am very tempted to set up a Brighouse news site, because the Brighouse Echo these days is literally not even worth the paper it's printed on Jesus. This is horrible in every way. Probably necessary, but... LOTS of CW on this, folks. Gillian Anderson: I Was Offered Half Duchovny's Pay for 'The X-Files' Revival - oh for fuck's sake Nooooooooooooooooo god DAMN nooooooooooooooooo [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
