<< Feb 2010 Is Cameron really Winnie the Pooh? Sunday, January 31st, 2010 - 5:40 pm
A. A. Milne who created all the creatures of Hundred Acre Wood, seems to have been a prescient political commentator. In The House at Pooh Corner written in 1928, we read the following exchange.
"I've got a sort of idea", said Pooh at last, "but I don't suppose it's a very good one".
"I don't suppose it is either", said Eeyore.
Now all you have to do is replace Pooh with Cameron and Eeyore with the British electorate, and you'll see what I mean.
The poor man is desperately caught between saying what he thinks he needs to to get elected, and needing to say what he must to keep the rabid-right in his own party happy.
Actually, I've got it he's Edward Scissorhands good-looking misunderstood boy who has to "cut, cut, cut" despite himself. Are the wheels finally coming off the Tory juggernaut? Sunday, January 31st, 2010 - 8:18 am
A BPIX poll today in the Mail on Sunday (I never thought I'd ever write that sentence) shows the Tories down below the crucial 40% threshold which would give us a hung parliament.
On the face of it great news, and even more reason to vote for the ONLY party committed to fairness in British politics, (you know, us Lib Dems).
The only problem is that as my colleague Mark Pack reported a couple of years back, no-one seems to know who BPIX are. They are not members of the British Polling Council, and their website has been "under construction" for years.
Curioser and curioser... Avogadro - 10:23 Saturday, January 30th, 2010 - 10:23 pm
Earlier today, I had intended to join a demonstration outside our local Boots in Leeds to protest at their sale of homeopathic products.
Recently, Boots gave evidence to Parliament that they did not believe that homeopathy actually works, but were selling it because their customers "believe" it works.
This is unethical at best and exploitative at worst, all for the sake of profits that even old John Boot would baulk at, shame on you Boots.
"The light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere" Saturday, January 30th, 2010 - 6:06 pm
The above words were spoken by Jawaharlal Nehru on the occasion of the assassination of the Mahatma, Gandhi on this day back in 1948.
I am a follower of Gandhi's principle of ahimsa or non-violence which is a belief in, and strategy for social change.
This does not mean simply a passive acceptance of oppression, rather we put great emphasis on information, education, and persuasion, as well as civil disobedience and direct action to attain lasting change. A bit of fun for the week-end! Friday, January 29th, 2010 - 3:47 pm
One of my friends at Keighley College has just sent me a link to a fantastic website which has uploaded the now-infamous Tory poster of the impeccably airbrushed DC.
Lady with the Little Dog Friday, January 29th, 2010 - 1:13 pm
Late last night/early this morning I waxed (rather too) lyrical about a Russian painting by Savrasov.
This afternoon, on the BBC iPlayer I caught up with a Woman's Hour dramatisation of an Anton Chekhov short story called Lady with the Little Dog, jolly fine adaptation it was too.
It reminded me of the film version that I'd seen in the early 1970s on the BBC2's World Cinema season. The film, dama s sobachkoy, was a delightful and poignant portrayal of a doomed love affair between two people already married, which reminded me so much of David Lean's Brief Encounter.
Much of my love for and knowlege of cinema was sparked in many ways by that series. I felt that the BBC lived up to its Reithian ideals of to "inform, educate, and entertain".
I strongly, passionately believe in the BBC both TV and, probably even more so, radio, which is why I am aghast at the constant attacks on it by the Tories and the rest of the "right-wing goon squad".
I am under no illusion that the given half a chance, they would carve up the BBC and sell of the more "profitable" bits to the likes of their chums including News Corp(se) and one Rupert Murdoch Esq.
This corporation who maintain a myriad of subsidiaries in low-tax havens like the Cayman Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, and the British Virgin Islands, simply to avoid paying its dues in a civilised society.
As far back as the 1990s, The Economist magazine was reporting that they were probably paying only one-fifth/one-sixth of the taxes they should worldwide, and NONE in Britain. Matters have not improved!
The BBC is part of the cultural fabric of this country having given so much to enrich us (as well as some duffers Kilroy, Dog Borstal, Kilroy...).
What has Murdoch given us? Oh yes, Page 3 of the Sun. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? Friday, January 29th, 2010 - 3:33 am
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
It was me at my wretched keyboard!
I know, it's gone half past three and I just can't go to sleep, so I've come down to make myself a cup of tea and hopefully relax and go back to bed. I'm teaching tomorrow.
The lines above (the first three) are from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, and are possibly some of the most famous lines in American poetry.
There was a brilliant parody in an early Simpsons episode.
Actually I've got rather a soft spot for members of the corvidae family.
One of my favourite paintings is one by Alexei Savrasov called Грачи прилетели or The Rooks Have Come Back. It shows a rather horribly bleak wintry snow-laden landscape with what looks like dozens of carrion crows ready to pick at some dead thing.
In fact, in Russian literature and poetry their return indicates that they are to make their nests in the birch trees, and so heralding spring.
Which all goes to show how we can all misinterpret signs whether literary, cultural or indeed economic. So now that the figures show that we are starting to come out of recession, only a fool (or indeed a Tory) would suggest we should make cuts in the public sector straight away. Richest 10% now 100 times better off than poorest! Thursday, January 28th, 2010 - 4:39 pm
Does any more actually need to be said about the greatest failure of this LABOUR government? I don't think so!
But don't be fooled into thinking the Tories would be any better, after all their only tax promise to date is to slash tax for the richest 3,000.
Disraeli must be spinning in his grave, wondering why he bothered writing Sybil, or The Two Nations. Holocaust Memorial Day - We value a free, tolerant, and democratic society Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 - 6:31 pm
Later on today I and my family shall be part of a torch-lit procession in commemoration of the Holocaust, the event is entitled Peace, Hope, and Light.
This is one of the most important days of the year as far as I am concerned, both the horrors of the Holocaust and its legacy should never be forgotten.
Although other genocides have been committed whether in Armenia, or Rwanda, or even in Darfur, nevertheless the systematic and legalised attempt at the extermination of the Jews and the Roma stands as a low watermark in human atrocity.
I can only concur wholeheartedly with a statement of commitment issued by the United Nations in 2004, which said:
* We recognise that the Holocaust shook the foundations of modern civilisation. Its unprecedented character and horror will always hold universal meaning.
* We believe the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our collective memory. We honour the survivors still with us, and reaffirm our shared goals of mutual understanding and justice.
* We must ensure that future generations understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences. We vow to remember the victims of Nazi persecution and of all genocide.
* We value the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives to protect or rescue victims, as a touchstone of the human capacity for good in the face of evil.
* We recognise that humanity is still scarred by the belief that race, religion, disability, or sexuality make some people's lives worth less than others'. Genocide, antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, and discrimination still continue. We have a shared responsibility to fight these evils.
* We pledge to strengthen our efforts to promote education and research about the Holocaust and other genocide. We shall do our utmost to make sure that the lessons of such events are fully learnt.
* We shall continue to encourage Holocaust remembrance by holding an annual Holocaust Memorial Day. We condemn the evils of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. We value a free, tolerant, and democratic society. Labour has run out of ideas on child poverty Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 - 1:14 pm
Figures released by the New Policy Institute show an increase in the number of children living in severe poverty since 2005.
It is clear that Labour has failed to tackle child poverty with its over- complex tax and benefit tricks.
We Lib Dems will invest more in education to give every child a fair start and break the link between poverty and low grades.
As for the Tories', they have huge gaping holes in their policies on poverty. A hodge-podge of tax cuts for millionaires and tax bribes for marriage would do nothing to tackle severe poverty when most of these families are not even in work, let alone in a position to inherit more than £1m from their relatives. 3,070,621 - Maggie's Millions revisited Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 - 7:09 am
In 1982, when the Tories were in government unemployment went above 3 million for the first time since the Great Depression, that was one-in-eight.
I was at university in the North and saw at first hand the devastation that their economic and social policies wrought, and how they ripped out the heart out of so many communities with reckless abandon.
So it was interesting to read a poll saying that so so many people still do not trust David Cameron and his "Toff Street Kids" cabinet, seeing the Tories as the party of the upper classes.
The same poll in the Guardian showed the Lib Dem vote at 21%, and Labour at 29%, clearly showing that more and more folk are seeing us as the party of fairness and social justice.
I suppose that if you want to end the stale and corrupt two-party politics at Westminster, then voting for we Lib Dems is not only the best thing to do, it is the ONLY thing to do. Burns Supper 2 Monday, January 25th, 2010 - 11:26 pm
Just finished off the last of the haggis, and it was delicious. I actually had made some cock-a-leekie soup earlier tonight, but our Lib Dem Group meeting took a little longer than I'd anticipated and so I was later back than I thought.
Anyway, a nice glass of Talisker to finish, and I'm off to bed.
Happy Burns Night one and all! Scots Wha Hae and Burns Night Monday, January 25th, 2010 - 12:00 am
Today is the birthday of the greatest-ever Scotsman, and tonight I shall be partaking of a Burns Supper with a haggis that "Great chieftain o' the puddin-race" and a wee dram of usquebaugh or the water of life, whisky to you, and raise a toast to that "Ill-fated genius" Robert Burns. Trade Unions, the Labour Movement, and the War on Iraq Sunday, January 24th, 2010 - 9:21 pm
I've been a member of a trade union since my first job leaving university, primarily the old Transport and General Workers' Union, then The NASUWT, and again the T&G (now Unite). So it was galling to hear Bob Crowe of the RMT saying on Any Questions that all the main parties had supported the war in Iraq. He was wrong!
Alone among the main parties we Lib Dems came out firmly against what we saw as an illegal, ill-judged, and ill-founded invasion. Many of us thought the government wrong about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, but few thought that it was a cynical war about regime change.
It now seems that there were many people in the FCO who had grave concerns about the legality of the war, and not simply a few voices in the wilderness.
So we await the ever-unravelling veil of semi-truths and downright lies to expose the duplicitous face of the Blair Government of the time. Cameron the new Blair Lite Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 - 8:28 am
When politicians start invoking morality alarm bells should start ringing, especially when they talk of "broken societies" and "social recession" as David Cameron did yesterday.
He was speaking of the horrific attacks on two little boys by two other youngsters, and of course it brought to mind Tony Blair's comments nearly twenty years ago of Britain being in a "moral vacuum", and look where that led us. An illegal, unjustified, and ultimately devastating war in Iraq because of a sense of moral superiority.
I am afraid that should Cameron be successful in becoming PM he would resort to the same "moral certainties" that Blair used to justify his more dubious decisions.
This is not in anyway to condone or minimise the traumatic attack carried out in Doncaster last year, but rather to eschew impotent hand-wringing or seeking vengeful retribution.
In fact, to reverse what the last Tory PM John Major said, namely that we should condemn less and try to understand more, and having understood take steps to see such, thankfully rare, behaviour does not occur again. Minimum price for alcohol Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 - 8:03 am
Back in October I posted about how I thought that the relatively cheap price of alcohol is a major contributing factor to the health problems faced by a significant section of our population, as well as the anti-social consequences of over-indulging and binge drinking.
Good to see then that some three months later even some Tories coming round to my way of thinking. Hooray. A Change Has Come Friday, January 22nd, 2010 - 11:11 pm
It is almost impossible to remember the euphoria last year when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first person of colour to be inaugurated as President of the United States, but euphoric it was.
The media are a fickle bunch, last year he could do no wrong and this year well he can do right. The main thing that seems to have upset them is his health care proposals.
It's difficult for us on this side of the pond to appreciate why the topic is so toxic. An important fact to bear in mind is that of the nigh on forty million people without insurance and ready access to healthcare an overwhelming majority are from the lower socio-economic classes and disproportionately of Black and Hispanic ethnicities.
However, in the words of the immortal Sam Cooke (whose birthday it is today) A Change Is Gonna Come.
There were times when I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will.
Gaining power is hard, but doing the right thing with that power is harder still. What was that about campaigning in poetry, but governing in prose?
I think he's doing the good. Pensioners and the Cold Weather Friday, January 22nd, 2010 - 7:14 am
One of the consequences of the recent inclement climatic conditions is that up to 5,600 pensioners in Keighley and Ilkley will miss out on Cold Weather Payments. Nationally, up to 1.7m pensioners will be going colder than they need to.
Cold Weather Payments of £25 a week are paid to people on low incomes who receive a qualifying benefit, such as Pension Credit, which goes unclaimed by far too many pensioners.
It is a scandal that pensioners on the breadline are missing out on these payments, worth an estimated £42.5m.
Fuel prices are at an all time high, making Cold Weather Payments all the more important to people already struggling on a poverty pension.
The government has failed pensioners by creating a complicated system that makes it difficult for them to get the help they desperately need.
They should be making every effort to identify pensioners who are missing out and get them this extra cash.
If elected for Keighley and Ilkley I shall make this issue a high priority. Me and Canadian Viagra! Friday, January 22nd, 2010 - 12:54 am
Earlier this week, friends started e-mailing me asking if I'd meant to send them a communication (or was aware that I had) purporting to offer good quality Canadian Viagra. Needless to say, I had absolutely no idea what they were on about until someone kindly forwarded my original (!) e-mail which obviously confirmed that my account had been hacked.
Which brings me to a report published by a company called Imperva who analysed 32m passwords that a hacker had posted on the Internet last month, and the top twenty passwords were:
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123
11. Nicole
12. Daniel
13. babygirl
14. monkey
15. Jessica
16. Lovely
17. michael
18. Ashley
19. 654321
20. Qwerty
Having read the report I have now changed my password to something a bit more secure. I hope! I could have stopped invasion - Jack Straw Thursday, January 21st, 2010 - 8:06 pm
The question is "Why didn't you?" Osborne ordered to repay £1,666 in expenses Thursday, January 21st, 2010 - 7:54 pm
What caught my eye?
You guessed it the 666.
Now I am in no way suggesting that "Boy George", is in any way the Beast referred to in the Book of Revelation, but it does make you think. Channel 4 sells India short Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 - 9:59 pm
I was really pleased when Channel 4 started running their trailers for their Indian Winter season, it was disappointing that they chose to play it safe and come up with a whole load of stereotypes.
Just watching Gordon Ramsay, not one of my favourite actors, tends to play to his potty-mouth screen persona, bit like the Geoff Boycott and his "professional Yorkshireman" schtick. Anyway, he's been shipped off all over India preparing food and swearing a lot (though thankfully not at the "natives") and being generally amazed at everything and everyone, without any insight, perception, or in fact anything new to say. It looked fantastic, vibrant colours, lush scenery, and gently giggling and politely bewildered locals, but more than that? Nothing.
What would have been more interesting would have been to have somebody like Tarla Dalal, Sanjeev Kapoor, Vikas Khanna, Hari Nayak, Madhur Jaffrey, or even the Taj Hotel's Chef Oberoi to go round Britain learning about local specialities and delicacies and making them with an Indian twist. Martin Luther King Day and Jacob Bronowski Monday, January 18th, 2010 - 7:17 am
On Friday, I wrote that it was Martin Luther King's actual birthday, however, today all across the US they officially observe it as a public holiday.
Nearly a year on since the inauguration of President Obama, I think that it is fair to say that one of the reasons I did not support Senator John McCain's bid for the presidency, (Reaganomics, hardline anti-Soviet Union, pro Nicaraguan Contras, etc.) was that in 1983 he was one of some twenty senators who opposed the creation of a federal holiday celebrating Dr King.
To be fair he did go on to say that he had been wrong, but that was more than a quarter-of-a-century later.
Anyway, the other name you will have noticed in the header is that of the late Dr. Jacob Bronowski, one of my all-time heroes, who would have been 102 today.
He was a scientist, a humanitarian, and a great chess player. As an official observer of the after-effects of the Nuclear Holocausts in Japan, he tried to better understand the nature of violence.
I first saw him on the telly in the BBC series The Ascent of Man in 1973. In one episode "Knowledge or Certainty", he is standing by a pond in Auschwitz, where he had lost many family members during the Nazi era. He then says some of the most profound words ever uttered:
Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people... It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave... [in the words of] Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken".
One of the most evocative, opening lines of any book ever written. No need to tell you that it is those of Don Quixote. It is one of my favourite books and tells you as much about the "human condition" as any of Shakespeare's plays.
The full quote goes:
En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no hace mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. Is there anyone more vile than Rupert Murdoch? Saturday, January 16th, 2010 - 2:00 am
Just watched a TV ad commendably asking people to donate to the Haiti appeal. Harrowing pictures of the aftermath of the earthquake physical damage and bewildered injured people. Then along comes the Sun logo and the voiceover asks you to donate.
My outrage and fury were sparked by small print that appeared on the TV screen that said of each pound donated, 61p would go to the fund and 39p to administration.
39p? Has Murdoch no shame? His multi-billion pound empire is going to make money out of people's misery on one side of the Atlantic and people's generosity and open-handedness on the other.
I call on the Sun's editor, Dominic Mohan, to withdraw the ad, apologise publicly for his boss's venal greed, and make a donation to the Disaster Relief Fund immediately. It's the least he can do.
If I was David Cameron, and thank heavens I'm not, I'd think long and hard before accepting the support of a man, a paper, a company that has absolutely no moral compunctions. Haiti Saturday, January 16th, 2010 - 8:09 am
I don't think I can add much just to say that everyone should think of donating as much as they can to the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal (https://www.donate.bt.com/dec_form_haiti.html).
It has been truly terrible to see the pictures coming out of P-au-P, so I was astonished by the staggeringly insensitive comments first made by Pat Robertson and the Rush Limbaugh.
The former (who tried to run for President in 1998) claimed that Haiti had sworn a "pact to the Devil" to be liberated from France, so all Haitians were "cursed" and the earthquake was their punishment from God. What a hateful and mean little man. Possibly a hundred thousand dead and the same number injured and this "man of the cloth" conjures up a vengeful Old Testament Jehovah to justify his own warped and perverse prejudices?
Limbaugh is just a loud-mouthed spiteful buffoon who saw in the earthquake an
"opportunity" for the Obama administration and advised Americans not to donate to Haitian relief, because they "already give" and "it’s called the income tax".
Thank heavens that these two are in no way representative of the vast majority of generous and open-hearted Americans.
Haiti has endured much and will survive even this catastrophe. After all she was only the second independent country in the New World, the first post-colonial black-led state in the world, and the only country who gained her independence because of a successful slave rebellion, read C. L. R. James cracking book, The Black Jacobins.
She survived and eventually ousted that horrible dynastic dictatorship Papa and Baby Doc and their murderous thugs the Tonton Macoutes, and no less than four hurricanes in 2008.
After the immediate disaster relief, the long-term solution for Haiti must include a programme of reforestation, building up the country's infrastructure, and massive investment in health and education. A day for anniversaries II Friday, January 15th, 2010 - 7:19 pm
I forgot, of course, to mention that today in 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, were tortured and murdered by the ultra-nationalist paramilitary thugs.
Ruhe in Frieden Rosa und Karl. A day for anniversaries Friday, January 15th, 2010 - 7:27 am
I notice from my almanac that today is littered with anniversaries some important and some not so.
Elizabeth is crowned Queen of England in 1559, and two hundred years later the British Museum opens. No the two are not directly linked!
Molière, Proudhon, Nasser, and Ivor Cutler (!) all born today I got into the latter upon hearing the LP Life in a Scotch Sitting Room, Vol. 2 whilst at Uni.
However, it is two poets whom I want to celebrate Osip Mandelstam and Nâzım Hikmet, one Russian the other Turkish. Both incredibly deep and powerful voices, both shut out and exiled, both much unappreciated outside their homelands.
Here's a couplet from Hikmet's Davet, which I think beautifully sums up current feelings about the banking sector and their ridiculously stratospheric bonuses.
Kapansın el kapıları, bir daha açılmasın,
yok edin insanın insana kulluğunu,
Shut the gates of plutocracy, don't let them open again,
annihilate man's servitude to man, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Friday, January 15th, 2010 - 3:33 am
Today is the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., probably the singlemost influential American Black man of the 20th century.
Without the work that he did as leader of the struggle for Black emancipation in the 1950s and 60s, work carried on by people like Jesse Jackson, we would not have had the first Black President of the United States.
But Dr. King's influence, especially his espousal of non-violence (directly borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi), has a far greater resonance for all peoples everywhere.
One thing that is forgotten about him is that he championed the rights of poor white folk as well, which brings me neatly to what John Denham has had to say about race and class yesterday.
I have always argued that there is much much more that unites in this country than divides us, and that while there may be minor and superficial differences evident in colour and creed, nevertheless what unites us (a sense of fair play and natural justice, rooting for the underdog and standing up to oppression, a visceral dislike of privilege and a belief in meritocracy) is a far more powerful force to be harnessed for the general commonweal.
I can do no better than to quote some of my favourite bits from Dr. King's "I have a dream speech", delivered on 28 August 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.:
* I have a dream that my... children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.
* I have a dream that one day... the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
* We will... hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope... transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood... We will work together, pray together, struggle together, stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
* Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
* Let freedom ring... to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! "First they came ..." Thursday, January 14th, 2010 - 10:12 pm
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me... and there was no one left to speak out.
Today is the birthday of Martin Pastor Niemöller who was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945 for his opposition to the Nazis' state control of the churches.
After his imprisonment, he expressed his deep regret about not having done enough to help the victims of the Nazis.
In January 1946 he first uttered the poem above in a speech in Frankfurt, which I still think the most powerful argument for brotherliness/sisterliness in a world supposedly run on selfishness and the "I'm alright Jack" philosophy of conservatism. Lib Dems and sexuality Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 - 7:29 am
There's an article in today's Independent where Lib Dem No 1, Nick Clegg lays out his stall on gay rights, and bolsters his impeccable liberal credentials, unlike that fair-weather phoney David Cameron.
I'm proud to say that one of the main reasons I joined the Liberal party as was in the 1970s was its attitudes and policies towards personal politics and especially gay rights.
Just as heartening to hear my beloved leader backing so many of my postings on this blog over the past nine months.
* Change the law to allow gay men and women the same marital rights as straight couples? Check (June)
* Not trusting Cameron on "Section 28"? Check (August and October)
* Review Uganda's membership of the Commonwealth if they bring in the death penalty for practicing gays? Check (December, to be fair I asked for Uganda to be expelled)
Nick's proposal to force all schools, including faith schools, to implement anti-homophobia bullying policies and teach that homosexuality is "normal and harmless", is wonderfully sound and something that I have been advocating for years.
The Tories are light years behind and Labour far too timid.
I am proud to belong to a party that has such progressive policies on LGBT rights, and a leader unafraid to proclaim them.
It's good to know that my leader and I are singing from the same songsheet. Is the NHS really safe in David "Scissorhands" Cameron's care? Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 - 1:14 pm
Just watched a preview of a programme on later tonight about a chap who's been hiccoughing continuously for two years.
Now normally, this sort of "human interest/medical/freak-fest" programme doesn't do it for me, but I remember Chris Sands from a news item last year. It turns out that he's had a tumour on his brain stem which was causing the hiccoughs. The tumour has been removed and Chris is on the road to recovery and the hiccoughs seem to have also vanished.
In the course of tonight's programme he says something interesting though, commenting on getting an MRI scan whilst in Japan to record a TV documentary, Chris says, "They [the NHS] probably should have done [an MRI exam] but it just never happened". And rather than be angry, he goes on to say, "Everyone seems to mean harm to the NHS for various reasons but I don't".
I couldn't agree more, which is why for us Lib Dems, the NHS represents values which unite us as a country, a comprehensive health service, which treats ALL people equally, and is free when we need it. What is courage? Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 - 7:31 am
I read with sadness of the death of Miep Gies who was the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank from the Nazis.
She worked as a secretary in Otto Frank's company, and got to know the family well. With her husband (Jan) and colleagues, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, and Bep Voskuijl, Miep helped hide the Franks (Otto, Edith, Margot, and Anne) the van Pels (Hermann, Auguste, and Peter), as well as Fritz Pfeffer, for more than two years.
These eight people were hidden in a sealed-off annexe in the company's offices on Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, for two years!
In theory, Miep and the others could have been shot for hiding Jews, nevertheless the quintet went ahead and showed that ordinary human decency can shine even in the darkest of times.
If you ever go to Amsterdam, it is well worth joining the more than a million visitors to the Ann Frank Huis (http://www.annefrank.org), and seeing for yourself the conditions that the octet had to put up with, and the cloying fear of discovery at any moment
Mark Twain wrote that, "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear", how apt.
Mies was an ordinary women, who showed extraordinary courage.
Rust in vrede Mies. Boris Johnson blames Margaret Thatcher for roadworks 'disgrace' Monday, January 11th, 2010 - 7:39 pm
Great headline in today's Guardian, apparently BoJo blamed Margaret Thatcher for turning Britain into one of the most "roadwork afflicted nations in the world".
Apparently, there are something like 1,000 holes dug every day in the capital which causes more than a third of all traffic delays and costs businesses £1bn a year.
All this because Mrs Thatcher unleashed competition amongst privatised utility companies and gave them almost unlimited powers to dig up the road without a by your leave.
There was a TV ad for Heineken a few years back that tapped into the frustration that many motorists face on a daily basis. We see labourers from a utility company digging a hole in the road. Then, along come more workers who ask if they can lay their pipe in the same opening. Eventually, there's a whole gang of road diggers installing cables and pipes in the one hole.
It was quite a clever and funny ad but did not do too well on the continent, until it was realised that that is precisely what happens anyway.
In the Netherlands, all companies can access a central database which tell them which cables (even from other companies) lie where and most importantly any future work involving digging up the road. They can then co-ordinate to share trenches and minimise costs and times of disruption.
Other solutions can include a five-year embargo on digging up new roads, as in France, or night-working only, as in Hong Kong, or even "trench-less" methods, as in Singapore.
"The whole system is a disgrace", said the Tory Mayor of London of the legacy left by the last Tory government. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, and senior Tories it now seems. Jenny Lee would be spinning in her grave Monday, January 11th, 2010 - 7:30 am
One of my many complaints about this Labour government and their dozen years in government has been their paucity of imagination, and general timidity in opposing vested interests.
One area in which that is most glaringly obvious is Tony Blair's oft-quoted maxim "education, education, and education". Whether it is in the primary, secondary, or tertiary sector.
Despite record spending, one-in-three schools are failing to provide pupils with a good education. Almost one-in-three 11-year-olds fail to reach basic standards in English and maths. More than half of all pupils fail to achieve 5 A*-C grades (inc. maths and English), and one-in-seven leaves school without a single C grade.
To quote our schools spokesperson David Laws who last year said, "These shocking figures reveal the true extent of Labour's failure in education... It is these young people, let down by Labour, who are now likely to be bearing the brunt of the recession".
In the tertiary sector, the introduction and maintenance of "top-up" fees despite the 2001 Labour manifesto promise of, "no plans to introduce University top-up fees", is counterproductive and not only saddles students with massive debts but disproportionately discriminates against those from poorer socio-economic classes.
All of which is ironic on the anniversary of the awards of the first degrees by the Open University in 1973. The OU was (and remains) a truly remarkable organisation based on radical principles of bringing education to "the masses" following on in a direct line from the Mechanics Institutes, to the WEA, and night schools.
The OU was founded in 1969, inspired by the vision of Michael Young, under the aegis Jennie Lee, with the full co-operation of the BBC. When the Tories were elected in 1970 they cut its budget having earlier called the whole idea "blithering nonsense". Hmmm, sound familiar?
We Lib Dems are the only party that believes university education should be free and everyone who has the ability should be able to go there and not be put off by the cost. 'Crisis? What Crisis?' Sunday, January 10th, 2010 - 6:54 pm
Back in 1979, then Labour PM Jim Callaghan returned from Guadeloupe to face a barrage of questions from the press and political opponents about the state of a strike-torn country, denying allegations that Britain was in chaos.
Britain, was was a country divided then, strikes had been erupting all winter in protest at the government's 5% pay limit.
We'd had a bakers' strike, lorry and tanker drivers were on strike, and by the end of the month, water workers, ambulance drivers, sewerage staff, and dustmen were out, heralding the "Winter of Discontent".
All of which brings me to the lamentable events in Westminster this week. On a human level, I feel sorry for Gordon Brown. The man is obviously an able and capable man, who has devoted his life to public service. He has held two of the Great Offices of State, ironically, Callaghan's still the only man to have held all four: PM, Chancellor, Home, and Foreign Secretary.
And yet all of this has turned to ashes in his mouth. With friends like those in the Labour Party, who needs enemies?
If I can offer any words of comfort, it would be "alea iacta est" (the die has been cast), they were supposedly uttered by Julius Caesar on this day in 49 BCE as he led his army across the Rubicon in northern Italy.
Hold fast and make the coming election a battle of ideas (which I believe that we Lib Dems would win hands down) and which would show the shallowness and vapidity of any Tory claims to represent the British people. Well done Portugal! Saturday, January 9th, 2010 - 1:04 am
What do these countries have in common, Belgium; Canada; the Netherlands; Norway; South Africa; Spain; Sweden?
No?
Well they're the only countries that where the legal status of same-sex marriages are exactly those of opposite-sex marriages.
And to that magnificient bunch is soon to be added Portugal
That's right Portugal, which along with Spain is a predominantly Roman Catholic Country... which, along with Spain, was until recently (well 1974) under the yoke of a corrupt and inefficient fascist dictatorship.
1974, great year to get rid of fascists first Portugal in the spring, and then Greece in the autumn. In the former there was a junior officers' coup led by the charismatic Major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho. There's a really good film that captures the atmosphere well, it came out a few years back and is called Capitães de Abril, well worth looking up on dvd.
Anyway, I've always had a soft spot for Portugal since then (pace Eusebio and the '66 World Cup side).
What made the Portuguese Revolution of '74 even more special for me was the role of the Eurovision Song Contest. I see your brows furrowed even as you read this.
The signal for the tanks to roll out of the barracks was the airing of the song E Depois do Adeus by Paulo de Carvalho, Portugal's entry in the ESC held in Brighton that year. How cool is that? Who says that Eurovision doesn't matter, Sir Terry?
Back to the vote in the Portuguese parliament, which was supported by all progressive parties and forces in the country, in the words of Premier Jose Socrates, "This law rights a wrong... and simply ends pointless suffering".
I look forward to the same decision being made by parliament in this country, and the half-way house of second class "civil partnership" to be replaced by marriage and equal rights for ALL of our citizens, irrespective of sexual preference. Nick Robinson, once a Tory, always a Tory...? Friday, January 8th, 2010 - 8:39 pm
Following on from the last post, I was speaking to a mate of mine on the phone who told me that Nick Robinson (Yes, that one) was national chairman of the Young Conservatives in the 1980s.
Curioser, and curioser. Amandla Ngawethu Friday, January 8th, 2010 - 7:31 pm
One of the reasons I joined the Young Liberals as a teenager in the mid-1970s, was the party's stance on South Africa and the condemnation of that stain upon humanity, apartheid, ironically pronounced "apart-hate" in Afrikaans.
I remember the charismatic leader of the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign, a young man, a Young Liberal, called Peter Hain.
One of the things I learnt about was the African National Congress, its struggle for survival and its resistance to the whites-only regime. I learnt to admire people like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, Mac Maharaj, Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Bram Fischer, Steve Biko, Trevor Huddleston, Miriam Makeba, Alan Paton, and of course Hector Pieterson whose dying body being carried by a fellow student became the iconic figure of the Soweto Uprising.
Today in 1912, the ANC was founded with a vision of a non-racial South Africa, a vision that took more than eighty years to realise. One of the reasons the apartheid regime took so long to fall was the succour it received from parties abroad. One of those was the Conservative Party of Mrs Thatcher, or more correctly the Federation of Conservative Students who used to sport "Hang Mandela" badges.
What a bunch of neanderthal idiots. Actually I apologise for that last remark. It's an insult to Neanderthals.
So Happy Birthday ANC, and Mayibuye-i Afrika. Tsutomu Yamaguchi Thursday, January 7th, 2010 - 6:09 am
I was saddened to hear of the death of Tsutomu Yamaguchi the only man to have survived not one but two atom bombs.
In 1945, on a business trip to Hiroshima, he was temporarily blinded and deafened, as well as being horrifically burnt. Three days later, back home at work in Nagasaki, 300kms away, the same white light filled the room.
"I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima", he later explained.
The atom bombs were the greatest single attacks on civilian life ever, causing nearly quarter-of-a-million people in a matter of moments in those two Japanese cities.
I have campaigned for the abolition of atom bombs ever since I found about them as a teenager. I believe them to be immoral and unjustifiable in any situation.
The passing of Yamaguchi-San brings to an end a shameful and horrendous chapter in human history. З Різдвом Христовим Thursday, January 7th, 2010 - 12:21 am
Merry Christmas to all my Ukrainian friends.
No, I'm not being my usual tardy self, it's just that the Ukrainian community uses the Gregorian calendar as in most other Orthodox countries.
So, z Rizdvom Hrystovym, and a Happy New Year. Clegg tells it like it is Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 - 9:42 pm
A vote for Labour or the Tories is a vote for tax dodgers in politics, a vote for letting guilty MPs off the hook, a vote for an unfair voting system.
You go Nick! Are Labour set to self-destruct? Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 - 9:39 pm
I am no fan of the New Labour Project, that goes without saying. I have residual fondness for the Old Labour party and of course the whole of the Labour Movement, well my Post-grad studies were in Labour History!
However, like many people I am totally perplexed by the shenanigans of Hewitt and Hoon (sounds like a mid-range Derbyshire estate agents). Just as I thought that GB gave as good as (if not better) than Cameron at PMQ (I especially liked his "change in the morning, change in the afternoon, change in the evening" quip), along come H2O (Hoon + Hewitt= 0, geddit? no? please yourselves) to scupper any chances that their party may have in the forthcoming general elections.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that we Lib Dems by far provide the bestest answers (or at least the most pertinent questions).
However, I do NOT want to see a Tory government returned. I remember the desolation they wreaked last time round. Whole swathes of the North, the Midlands, Scotland, and Wales lay in ruin. Many of the deep social and economic scars that this country still has to try to heal are as a DIRECT result of their inane, bullying, uncaring, and frankly idiotically vindictive policies.
I have often thought that Mrs Thatcher was probably the only Marxist Prime Minister we have ever had, inasmuch as she saw how class is so vital to our understanding of society.
Unfortunately for everyone, (teachers, nurses, steel-workers, miners, anyone with a social conscience) she was a petit-bourgeouis Poujadist nincompoop (as the release of the Cabinet papers just before Christmas showed), bigotted, hateful, and self-righteous, all in one "Home Counties package".
If you think the Tories have changed you are much-mistaken. They just want to win! At any cost! They will say, and do-ish anything to that end. Take any issue that any progressive can rally around, they are at the opposite end! Progressive taxation? more like regressive, breaks for the top 3,000 families inheritance!
Better schooling for all? only if you mean the paid-for sector or grammars.
Equal Rights for women? Only if they'll get out of the workplace, and go back in the home, preferably married.
Equal Rights for Gays and Lesbians, including marriage? Not if some Tory blogger says, "feel uneasy at overt displays of affection by randy homosexuals".
As for local politics, just look what a mess they are making in councils up and down the country, Bradford (er...), Calderdale (double er...), Barnet (Easy Jet as a business model?) what planet are they from?
I could go on, but I'd only be boring myself, and possibly you dear reader.
Now where was I? Oh yes, the new damp squib from Hewitt and Hoon. Why do they want a leadership contest? I have no idea. Unless they have someone in mind, but who?
Where is this knight in shining armour who will rescue Labour?
Johnson? Nice bloke, but knows, and admits, his own limitations.
Darling? All we'd get are sub-Blackadder Goes Forth, Captain Darling jokes.
Straw? Man of... and promoted beyond his abilities.
Milibands junior and minor? I had far more time for their father, great theorist and lecturer, and anyway for Mili Junior, to quote Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
There really is no-one, NB no women, in the current crop who could take over the reins at such short notice and hope to make any sort of impact. If I was being really mischievous I'd be starting a "Bring Backing Blair" campaign. They are determined to score as many own goals for the Tories as they can.
Nope, to paraphrase Shakespeare again this time Mercutio "a plague on both their houses".
If you want passion, purpose, and principle, we Lib Dems are the ONLY party to vote for. The Day Captain Kirk failed Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 - 4:16 pm
News yesterday that Iceland's president, Olafur Grimsson, has vetoed a bill approving the repayment of some £3bn to the Dutch and British governments due because of the failure of Icesave, reminded me of not only the Cod Wars between ourselves and the Icelanders thirty-odd years back.
But also how some ten years later a Danish trawler was arrested for entering British waters illegally, the name of that enterprising captain? why Kirk of course, sadly not James T(for Tiberius) but Kent. The only time I suppose we were cheering for the Klingons, that's Mrs Thatch and her intrepid (!) crew. Dubček and the "Prague Spring" Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 - 1:11 am
When I lived in Bratislava in the mid-1990s, I lived in the rather grim high-rise bit called Petržalka, whilst I had some really good friends who lived in Karlova Ves. On one occasion, we all went up to Slávičie údolie cemetery to lay some flowers on the grave of Alexander Dubček.
It is now more than four decades since he came to power as leader of the then Czechoslovakia and started what was to become known as the "Prague Spring" or the Pražská jar as I learned to call it in Slovak.
Dubček was an amazing person, one thing I didn't know about him was how as a child he was among more than a thousand people who left Czechoslovakia in the 1920s to go and work in the Interhelpo industrial co-operative in Soviet Kyrgyzstan.
And the really cool thing about Interhelpo? It was founded by Esperantists and Idists (speakers of Ido, another international language).
Unfortunately, like many other goodly things, Interhelpo was liquidated (both metaphorically and literally) by Stalin in 1943.
Dubček, although deposed and kidnapped to the Soviet Union in 1968, had the last laugh, living long enough to see democracy return to Czechoslovakia Ave Cunctator Monday, January 4th, 2010 - 11:42 pm
Today in 1884, the Fabian Society was founded, and over more than a century they have contributed much valuable radical and reformist thinking to the progressive movement.
Happy Birthday the Fabians. Cometh the hour, cometh the man Monday, January 4th, 2010 - 11:24 pm
So the general election campaign seems to have started-ish, and the first whiff of pressure Cameron begins to buckle.
I refer of course to the Tory leader's half-cock comments on tax breaks for married couples, first it's on, then it's off, then a few hours later it's back on again.
To re-iterate, what Nick Clegg said earlier today, “We’ve got Gordon Brown clinging on to power and David Cameron promising phoney change, if we want something really different then we’ve got to vote for something really different and we Lib Dems are the different party of British politics”. To get "profound change"... vote Lib Dem Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 - 1:13 pm
In response to the PM's comments earlier today that "The Liberals... are closer to us", I agree with Danny Alexander, that Labour has "failed to make Britain fair, failed on the economy, failed to protect our environment, and failed to clean up politics".
Labour has failed to deliver these changes but the Tories cannot be trusted to do so, the only way to get "profound change" is to vote Lib Dem. Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 - 12:03 am
From the first of this month, a new Irish blasphemy law became operational, and a campaign has begun to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion.
Blasphemy laws are unjust... in a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.
Thankfully, in March 2008, the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel was abolished in England and Wales.
However, the struggle for enlightenment continues with the forces of regression and repression ever striking back forcefully. In this I believe we must support our friends across the Irish Sea.
I would urge everyone to have a look at this site*. I’m ashamed to be a Tory voter today - Alex Singleton Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 - 7:07 am
"Even though I’m a Margaret Thatcher-worshipping libertarian, sometimes Tory policies – even those from the Iron Lady herself – make my blood boil".
From yesterday's Daily Telegraph, fairly anodyne article about VAT, but I just loved the headline.
You've got to laugh really, if even their most ardent supporters are having doubts, then the future may not be so bright for the Tories.
Maybe the old Hutchison Telecom slogan "The future's bright, the future's orange" should be appropriated by us Lib Dems? West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service Friday, January 1st, 2010 - 8:08 am
Congratulations to Colin Smith of Keighley for receiving an MBE for services to Local Government.
At a time when regard for public service, through the antics of a few MPs, has sunk to an all-time low, it is good to know that our firefighters, police, and ambulance services are still so highly regarded.
They provide an invaluable service in keeping us safe in our homes, on the streets, and increasingly in our cars. One shocking statistic that has come out in recent months is that firefighters rescue seven times as many people from wrecked cars as they do from burning buildings. Happy New Year one and all Friday, January 1st, 2010 - 12:00 am
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