On Wednesday I had three meetings: planning in the morning where I was speaking against an application for housing at Starling Walk (see my previous post); a seminar on tackling poverty in the afternoon and Planting Up Whickham in the evening. At the poverty meeting, I discovered that the council is now setting up a scheme to collect fresh produce from wholesalers on the Team Valley which is
One of my reasons for leaving conference early was to attend Gateshead Council planning committee meeting on Wednesday morning to speak against an application for 8 houses and 2 bungalows on land between Sun Hill Court and Starling Walk in Sunniside. I have no problem with this vacant site being used for housing but in a number of discussions with officers and the political leadership of the
At the heart of the strategy which David Howarth and I sketched out for the party in 2015, is a two-fold argument bolstered by the evidence in our pamphlet: That the Liberal Democrats suffer from having only a very small number of committed loyalists. This small core vote holds the party back, giving it only weak foundations on which to build. The solution is to be found in the sizable chunk of the electorate who shares the party's values but doesn't currently think of itself as Liberal Democrat. There are many ways of fleshing out what those party values are ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: Two Hearts Time Lords have two hearts and a binary vascular system, which enables them to survive major accidents and many physical and temporal shocks that would kill a human being. They also have a respiratory by-pass system that enables them to survive without breathing for some time. This is a very gorgeous catalogue of the concepts of New Who; not much more to say about it except again to emphasise that it looks very nice. My copy is from after the first Matt Smith series, ie the first five series of New Who, but ...
The latest Liberal Democrat TV film (Party Political Broadcast, or PPB), is really two. First, a new one about the party's vision for Britain, showing how there's more to the party's new messaging than simply the Demand Better slogan.
There was literally nothing in it that we didn't know already. She doesn't like either of the two options the EU are offering, but they are the only possible options on the table for a deal and have been so for two years - not because the EU are meanies, but because the only other possible option is no deal. May keeps going back to them and asking for impossible options. The EU keeps telling her that the impossible options are, in fact, impossible. Today her speech was basically saying "If you don't give me the flying unicorn that farts ...
This is hilarious. I saw it originally at the Millennium Dome, when it was still called that in 2000. I couldn't stop laughing. I suppose the ridiculous little underpants help the comedic effect! Advertisements
If only our northern Motorways were all free flowing as the M58 was when this shot was taken. I've commented often about the parlous state of our railways here up north. Probably with the exception of Merseyrail they are a right old mess, but what about our roads? If my two recent experiences on Motorways across the north is anything to go by they are probably in a worse state than our railways and that takes some believing. Lydiate to Chesterfield via the M62 and M1 last Sunday – 5 hours! OK a couple of stops along the way for ...
The Prime Minister has just spoken in Downing Street about the status of Brexit after the Salzburg meeting of the EU leaders last night. This is my personal response and not in connection with my party positions or memberships. The Prime Minister has continues to ignore the will of the people of Northern Ireland and just now also seems unaware of how the best interests of Northern Ireland people and business can be resolved. She has once again spouted the DUP rhetoric which is the minority opinion both at the time of the referendum and since. As a result in ...
After a short period at the Lib Dem conference I am still in Brighton for a couple of days. Brighton is quite a good place to reflect on the state of the UK. Thinking back, Brighton used to be in much better nick than it is now. Many pavements are cracked and broken, many of the houses and hotels look run down and in need of repair and renovation. The seafront is not particularly special and the West Pier is still a burned out shell. Here, in one of the UKs premier resorts, there are many homeless people on the ...
On Tuesday I attended a meeting of Gateshead Council's health scrutiny committee to discuss the proposed closure of Dunston Hill Hospital. Sites for health facilities can come and go. Sometimes old sites need to be closed and services moved elsewhere. That is all part and parcel of a health service that has to evolve constantly to reflect current and changing health needs. So no individual site
On Tuesday I missed the last day of conference so that I could return home to Gateshead. I had a meeting in the afternoon of the health scrutiny committee which was discussing the proposed closure of Dunston Hill Hospital. I had already been in touch with one of the staff members from the hospital and I was determined to be at the meeting to raise concerns about the consultation process being
One of my earliest memories is of being sat on my granddad's lap, reading out loud from the Penguin 'Read It Yourself' version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. I was perched on his knee, while my grandma sat in the opposite chair, and my mum and dad were curled up on the corner sofa. When I finished the book, the bells of the ice-cream van sounded from outside, and my granddad said: "Well, I think that deserves an ice-cream"... Image Source: etsy.com It engendered in me a life-long love of reading (and ice-cream), which is one that I hope ...
Last Monday the Liberal Democrats passed a policy paper on economic reforms, Good Jobs, Better Businesses, Stronger Communities. This covers economic policy outside fiscal and tax reform, and fits in with the party leadership's wish to address the challenges of what is often called the fourth industrial revolution. Does it measure up to the challenge? Sometimes ... Continue reading Lib Dem economic policy takes a step leftwards
Monday was my last day at Brighton conference. I returned home on Tuesday morning as I had commitments back in Gateshead and Newcastle. In this video I show you what you can expect if you go to Lib Dem conference.
Members of the Radical Association Executive have had a significant impact at this year's Autumn Conference. I'm extremely pleased with the work that the Executive and our supporters have put into this Conference and thankful for all the time that you have given. Thanks to those efforts we managed to pass a significant policy amendment on each day of the Conference. Our Director, April Preston, managed to significantly strengthen the party's new disciplinary processes, with the addition of a proposed AIR (Anonymised Incident Reporting) system. This will allow encrypted initial reports to be made in which both the complainant and ...
Yesterday lunchtime I was given the encouraging news that my white cell count had started to move up slightly from zero, where it had been for a few days. My stem cells are clearly little beauties, as that happened slightly earlier than is normal. Today's blood samples were taken at 6am. I've been waiting with high anticipation to see the ... The post Transplant +9: You little beauties! appeared first on ten pence piece.
Fri 21st
11:13
While Labour's call for a general election makes political sense, they haven't bothered to have it m...
A repeated theme from the Labour frontbench for many months now has been that a second referendum on Brexit would be a terrible idea, and that if May crashes and burns on the rocks of the negotiations, we should have a general election instead. The problem is, they really haven't thought this one through. Like, at all. In the 2017 general election, people looked to the Tories to have a plan on Brexit while Labour were given a bit of a free pass on the subject. There were several reasons for this, not least of which was that no one ...
Thu, 12:56: Hollywood has a mixed history adapting Hugo-shortlisted works https://t.co/MjcKpCjPK2 I had missed the Riverworld adaptation. Thu, 16:05: Fan Bingbing disappearance highlights ties between Chinese politics and showbusiness https://t.co/RYWDFoAxbO Very interesting. Thu, 16:22: RT @joncstone: Brilliant photo here from Salzburg by REUTERS/Lisi Niesner https://t.co/dPf8HgtqSo Thu, 19:08: Dark Satanic Mills, by Marcus Sedgwick, Julian Sedgwick, John Higgins and Marc Olivent https://t.co/t3NHfwnkrI Thu, 23:48: RT @apcoworldwide: APCO is proud to support the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and its mission to honor the efforts of inspiring humanitari... Fri, 10:45: RT @PatrickKingsley: Fair play to the Telegraph, calling their star columnist a liar on ...
Democracy, in a civilised society, has its rules. One of them is, if not the respect, at least the polite tolerance of others. Humility and caution are two additional requisites, I would suggest, for whoever wishes to express political opinions. A number of Brexiters, learning of a growing desire among many to see another people's vote take place are, like bad sports players, now sliding into disrespectful and even injurious behaviours. The Spectator for example, published a few days ago an article entitled 'The People vs Brexit'. Its author, Mr Rod Liddle, writing: The People's Vote monkeys now buttress their ...
There was a certain inevitability about Theresa May's humiliation at the yesterday's Salzburg summit. Not only has she been handed an impossible negotiating position by the hard-line Brexiteers in her party, who somehow believe that they can still deliver on the lies and half-thought through promises that won them the referendum, but she has destroyed her own room for manoeuvre within the Conservative Party by her ill-advised dash for a majority in the 2017 General Election. She has also suffered from her own naivety and failure to understand the red lines of her opponents within the EU, who have created ...
Every now and then you have to blow your own horn. This is one of those occasions when I am going to do just that. Last week I won a commendation from the award committee of Britain's Ashdown Prize for Radical Thought. It would have been nice to win first prize and the cash that went with it, but the commendation provides me with a modicum of credibility and the hook to promote it. The commendation was for my proposal for "Development Bonds." What, you may ask are Development Bonds? Well, I think they are a multi-level win/win solution for ...
Does middle-class still make sense? Metropolitan anonymous sprawl hides all sorts of marginalised people. Odd to say, but as proven by political voting behaviour, it is also the middle and upper middle-class who are most aloof from political activism or from structured institutional representation. Their lack of political involvement implies an unconscious unhappiness and a [...] The post Could a renewed middle class save the world from populism? appeared first on Radix.
It's been a long time since I ventured into the blog. Yes, I've written a few things for Liberal Democrat Voice as the mood, or a sense of vague obligation, has inspired. It hasn't been easy though. I had begun to wonder if I wasn't beginning to drift into mild depression but, whilst there is much "out there" to despair over, it is, to a great degree, one step removed from my day to day existence. After all, Ros and I are happy together, work is alright (and does not dominate my life in any sense), and life in the ...
I have kept reasonably quiet about Vince's reforms since his announcement on 7th September because I wanted to let others have their say. My sense at Conference is that people were interested in what he had to say. Everyone had things they liked and things they didn't. They were all going to respond to the consultation with varying degrees of pleasure and pain. This is how it is supposed to be. I do want to slightly disagree with my fellow Federal Board members who have been talking to Politics Home about the process, though. They complained about being "bounced." Now, ...
Councillors met in Shirehall yesterday for business that lasted more than three hours. There were good moments in this meeting but also the ugliest moment I have witnessed in my time as a councillor, or before. It was political, it was nasty and it was totally unnecessary. I begin with the ugly. Conservative councillor for Bagley, Alexander Phillips led a motion on antisemitism. He called for the council to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance guidelines on antisemitism. No problem. There was never an issue about every member voting for this. But the timing of the motion always looked suspicious. ...
