From the Leicester Mercury: Council owned CCTV cameras in a town centre have not been working properly for nearly six months according to anonymous sources. It is understood the 17-camera network in Market Harborough has experienced difficulties since the control room was moved last autumn. The equipment belongs to Harborough District Council which has refused to comment on the problems. The screens are monitored from within the police station in Leicester Road but the force is refusing to comment too.The question, of course, is whether there has been any increase in crime or fall in detection rates in the town ...
widgetfox gave me M. Something I hate: Myopia. I've had to wear glasses since I was six because I am very short-sighted. Glasses are expensive and they break. Now that my eyes are becoming middle-aged, I have to either peer through the lower half of my progressive lenses or take them off altogether and squint if I am reading small text; I daily encounter situations when neither option is really possible. I hate metaphorical myopia too, but the real thing has been a burden for over forty years. Something I love: Marriage is jolly good fun, at least it has ...
Let me begin by saying how proud we all ought to be of every single Liberal Youth member who got up on stage during our party's recent conference. Each one of them, whether I agreed or not, had a lot of incredibly thoughtful points to make, and points this party ought to take heed of. [...]
"Osborne's new sugar tax is a tax on the poor" announces an article in the Spectator - a magazine not hitherto noted for its concern for the poor. In the short term it may operate like that, but the long-term effect of the tax is likely to be that manufacturers reformulate their products to avoid having to charge the tax. Good news for the poor, though not for the school sports schemes that will benefit from the money it raises. Children like sweet things and there are good evolutionary reasons why this should be so. Sweet things tend to be ...
This is a guest post, of sorts. My wife, Holly, is writing a book on her experiences being an immigrant in the UK. She's Kickstarting it, and here's the description, in her own words: Becoming a citizen of the UK ... Continue reading →
"The sun is shining but the chancellor chooses to knock holes in the roof. Now is the time for ambition." "It is time to show those who care for us, those who teach our children, a little more respect."
[IMG: York Liberal Democrat conference 2016 - photo courtesy of Cara Jenkinson] York Liberal Democrat conference 2016 – photo courtesy of Cara Jenkinson Nice to receive this news today from the Liberal Democrat conference team: We just wanted to say a huge thank you for your contribution to the Access Fund. Your gift helped many have the opportunity to experience the Liberal Democrat Conference when otherwise it would have been impossible for them to take part. 34% of members attending the conference helped make the Access Fund possible this year, enabling 21 members manage the costs of conference, and even ...
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats:
Conference must be congratulated on passing the Diversity motion on Sunday. But contentious issues and some mysteries remain. One is why have we taken 14 years to get round to all-women short-lists for constituency selections, when they became the law of the land in the 2002 Sex Discrimination Act? In theory, any local party could have operated all-female short-lists at any of the three general elections since then, safe in the knowledge they were legal, passed by Parliament. Had that happened, the battle for all-BME (now BaME) lists could have begun at least a decade ago. Perhaps before Parmjit Singth ...
Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams responded to George Osborne's budget announcements: Frankly, the proposed cut in the tolls is pathetic. Once back in public ownership, there is no need whatsoever for there to be tolls on these bridges. The Chancellor is cynically acting as if he is doing commuters a favour, but the fact is that he wants to keep this unfair tax on entering Wales. Only the Liberal Democrats will completely scrap these tolls. The lack of any real progress on the Swansea Tidal Lagoon is yet another nail in the coffin of the Tories' green credentials. The ...
Lynne Featherstone today tries to get the House of Lords to oppose Tory cuts to renewable obligations, which, as she points out in an article for Politics Home, is hardly consistent with the protocol they signed up to in Paris. I do not have the space to list the full litany of destruction that has been wrought since the election by this government but it includes such worrying measures as privatising the Green Investment Bank, ending support for onshore wind power, weakening the zero carbon homes standard, and reducing the incentives to purchase low-emission cars. Now to add to that ...
[IMG: Budget 2016] ALDC and our colleagues at the LGA Lib Dems and party HQ have prepared a number of resources for members to use immediately in the wake of today's budget. Online resources BBC at a glance guide and BBC information on how is affects local people LGA Lib Dems Budget Response Liberal Democrat HQ Local Gov coverage [...]
[IMG: The LGA Lib Dems support Liberal Democrat council groups across the country] LGA comment and briefing on the budget is available at www.local.gov.uk/budget-2016 or www.local.gov.uk Commenting on today's Budget, LGA Lib Dem Group Leader Gerald Vernon Jackson said: "While the Chancellor seems to have recognised the funding pressures facing councils and local services by not announcing any more cuts to local government in the budget, we need [...]
This is a 'microwave' budget from George Osborne. He has just re-heated many announcements already made. Some announcements can be welcomed - albeit cautiously at this stage as we haven't seen the precise detail. Devolution of Business Rates and the proposals for financing infrastructure projects from land value increases are things the Liberal Democrats have long argued for. Those of us in London had already been told last week that Crossrail 2 was going ahead and that there would be a need for Londoners to match fund the development costs. The increase in the share of business rates retained by ...
The decision of the UK Government to grasp the nettle and impose a tax on sugary drinks is very welcome. I have written at length on this blog about this subject. My view is that whereas a general tax on sugar could be damaging and hit poorer people because so many processed foods are full of the stuff, the evidence is there to try and force drinks companies to reduce the sugar content in their drinks. It is worth recalling that the average person consumes 150 pounds of sugar each year, the equivalent of approximately seventy five one kilogram bags ...
The proposed cut to the Severn Bridge tolls is "pathetic". They are unfair and should be scrapped completely. I am also disappointed that the Chancellor failed to announce support for the Swansea Tidal Lagoon project in his budget today. Once back in public ownership, there is no need whatsoever for there to be tolls on these bridges. The Chancellor is cynically acting as if he is doing commuters a favour, but the fact is that he wants to keep this unfair tax on entering Wales. Only the Liberal Democrats will completely scrap these tolls. The lack of any real progress ...
As Lib Dems respond to the Budget, we will update this post: Kirsty Williams was first off the mark as she slammed Osborne's halving of the Severn Bridge tolls as "pathetic." Frankly, the proposed cut in the tolls is pathetic. Once back in public ownership, there is no need whatsoever for there to be tolls on these bridges. The Chancellor is cynically acting as if he is doing commuters a favour, but the fact is that he wants to keep this unfair tax on entering Wales. Only the Liberal Democrats will completely scrap these tolls. The lack of any real ...
I went to Cabinet today to ask them to extend the secondment of an Occupational Therapist to the Care Connect Team. The current secondment is due to finish in August. It doesn't sound much, but it's critical. Cabinet has decided to introduce a charge for thousands of frail and vulnerable people who were previously getting this emergency alarm system free. They used to get it free because they were receiving certain benefits. Some of those people, who are not well off, will quit the system (even if they need it) because they feel they can't afford it. Some could suffer ...
I spent much of the early stages of the Democratic Primary blogging about how Sanders was a much less formidable opponent for Hilary Clinton than much of the media coverage suggested. I confidently predicted that he had basically no chance of winning the nomination and would be lucky to win anywhere other than than small states [...]
Welcome to our Budget 2016 live blog. In the last few minutes, I've come over all feverish and sicky. There's every possibility that that is not related to the imminence of a Tory budget, but we can't be entirely sure. I'm on the sofa with my Official Hiding Behind Pillow and a cup of tea, survival essentials for any Osborne speech. During the coalition years, it was more of a rollercoaster. One minute I'd be punching the air at every Liberal Democrat policy clearly enacted. Then despair as we wondered why the hell we'd agreed to THAT. Now it's just ...
Leaks from within the Labour's Party reveal that Cllr. Steve Kermode the Labour member for Sefton Council's Park Ward (western Maghull & all Lydiate) is not standing again when his seat comes up for re-election in May of this year. Steve is presently the Mayor of Sefton and was originally elected to Sefton Council in 2012. I hope it is fair to say that Steve may not have found working within the local Labour Group a bed of roses. That could be because he is foremost a chap who seems to put the people who elected him first and within ...
Wed 16th
11:47
Lib Dems should be criticising SNP as well as Labour over failure to oppose Snoopers' Charter
The Party has produced a couple of graphic quite rightly having a go at Labour over their abstention on the IP Bill. [IMG: Labour right to privacy] and [IMG: Labour IP Bill graphic] A craven Andy Burnham made this extraordinary comment on the Daily Politics yesterday: It would be irresponsible to say we'll just go into outright opposition because I don't think that is right. What do they think they are for? No wonder the Tories are making as much hay as possible. They should be fighting for every vote with such a small majority. He then went on to ...
[IMG: 500x500 richard] This Friday and Saturday Richard Cole will be working the North Wales Lib Dem team. Richard is ALDC's Development and Field Team Manager and is also the Development Officer for Wales. Richard will be helping to train activists in practical aspects of Connect, including using MiniVAN. USING MINIVAN "I will be getting out on the [...]
[IMG: Postal votes land in a month's time in some local authorities] It's just weeks to go now until postal votes start to land on the doorsteps of places facing elections. I thought it might be useful to share some examples of the type of direct mail campaigns Liberal Democrats are running. Below you will find some examples of postal vote recruitment letters, letters to postal voters, [...]
During the debate on diversity the speeches on all sides were so moving that I felt compelled to share some of the science behind WHY we needed this motion and why I am so proud of everyone who spoke in that debate. Studies show that from birth, girls lose out to boys. In the 'Baby X' trials where a baby is referred to as 'Dana' or 'David, or dressed in pink or blue irrespective of their gender, adults treat the babies differently. At the age of 11 months, in studies where mothers are asked to estimate their infants' crawling ability ...
Apologies if you are sick fed up of this speech already, but, thanks to Lizzy Adams' partner Richard Buckley, I have an actual video of my speech to Conference which I am narcissistic enough to want to preserve on these ... Continue reading →
Well worth a watch
Wed 16th
09:25
If the country votes to leave the EU in June, the Tories could face a huge backlash on immigration
I'm Immigration is one of the key planks of the Vote Leave argument. No wonder: in terms of trying to get the British public keyed up about the EU, immigration is the one thing that does it for a large portion of the population. This is oddly one of the reasons the Brexiteers in the Conservative Party better hope we vote to stay in on June 23rd (which, to be fair, some of them often appear to do already, strangely enough). Imagine we vote to leave in June. What happens next? All sorts of scenarios have been painted by both ...
[IMG: Solar panels on a roof. CC0 Public Domain] It was not too long ago that the Liberal Democrats in the Lords led a vote in defence of feed in tariffs, a policy introduced by the Lib Dems in the last Government to boost a burgeoning solar industry. Now the Tory assault has got personal, they have moved their focus on to people's homes, attacking the small scale roof top solar panels that dot our residential landscape. We have sadly lost the battle against the extraordinarily steep and abrupt removal of the feed-in tariffs for solar, wind and hydro. We ...
[IMG: Hillary Florida GOTV] What do Florida, North Carolina and Ohio have in common? They're AWS, which means All Winning States on this side of the pond. As I write (0515!GMT) Hillary appears to have won Illinois and Missouri by a margin that would have any agent worth their salt screaming "Recount," at the top of their lungs. Whilst Florida was always polling strongly for Hillary, the big prize tonight was Ohio for her campaign. After the shock loss of Michigan last week, Hillary's campaign needed a big win in the rust belt. In Ohio, she got it. The two ...
Unsurprisingly, a motion to Liberal Democrat conference against the Investigatory Powers Bill passed overwhelmingly this weekend. Below is the video and text of my contribution to the debate, which I can share with you as I had written it in advance, albeit only a couple of hours earlier! The myth spread by the Home Office that the technical industry understands the Bill is always something I am keen to dispell, so that was my main purpose in wanting to speak. The quote from the New York Review of Books is also something that's stuck in my head since I first ...
The Investigatory Powers Bill, colloquially the 'Snooper's Charter', passed its second reading yesterday with an astonishing margin of 281-15. This was facilitated by Labour and the SNP kindly stepping out of the way and allowing the Conservatives to vote it through without a fuss, which can only raise the question - what on earth is [...]
West End Community Council is seeking your views! You can download the Community Council's survey form here. The Community Council would be grateful for your thoughts and also if you could give one suggestion about how the area could be improved in the short, medium and long term. Please fill in the survey and simply hand it in to Blackness Library before the end of March - many thanks.
Wed 16th
08:06
Shropshire and Ludlow are lagging on higher education - 200 young people a year miss out
I see in the Ludlow Advertiser Philip Dunne is welcoming the increase in young people applying to go university. He fails to mention that his own constituency is performing worse than much of England. Ludlow used to be ahead of the game but is now trailing behind. The data released by UCAS earlier this month... Continue reading Shropshire and Ludlow are lagging on higher education - 200 young people a year miss out →
Shakespeare's take on refugees, performed by Harriet Walter From Sir Thomas More, unperformed in Shakespeare's lifetime. #fb (tags: shakespeare migration ) Why the Tory project is bust Playwright David Hare explains (at length). (tags: ukpolitics ) Myanmar's moment of truth Plenty left to do. (tags: burma ) Rise and stall: The political trajectory of Marco Rubio As he fades from view... (tags: uspolitics )
