Liberal England

A must read in The Mail on Sunday:

Initially there was very little money, even less strategy and a great deal of frustration as I realised the media – and to some extent the public – cared only about the two high-profile candidates, Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone.

I struggled through a nine-month campaign in which the third force in British politics, for reasons beyond our control, became daily more like the third farce.

Labels: London

Is this the start of a worrying trend? The BBC website carries two apparently unrelated reports.

In Florida:

A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

The bird, which died in Thursday's collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker's face as she bathed near the city of St Petersburg.

The city fire chief said he had never heard of a diving pelican hit a person.

In London:

Families and tourists in a London park were left shocked when a pelican picked up and swallowed a pigeon.

The unusual wildlife spectacle in St James's Park was caught on camera by photographer Cathal McNaughton.

He said the Eastern White pelican had the unfortunate pigeon in its beak for more than 20 minutes before swallowing it whole.

An RSPB spokesman said: "It is almost unheard of for a pelican to eat a bird. Their diet should be strictly fish."

Hmm. Pelcians seems to be doing a lot of unprecedented things all of a sudden.

Watch the skies!

With tomorrow being Steve Winwood's 60th birthday, I have an excuse for returning to this blog's favourite band.

This performance comes from the same Finnish TV concert as the version of "I'm a Man" featured here a few weeks ago. Which means it comes from 1967 when Winwood was 18 and about to leave the group to form Traffic.

Winwood's homage to Ray Charles is extraordinary. And it raises the question of why it was that in the early 1960s a generation of white middle-class boys found such affinity with the Black American music of the blues.

I read somewhere that Pete Townshend attributed it to the fact that we were all so depressed after World War II and the austerity years. My own theory is twofold.

The first is that this generation had fathers who played jazz. This was true of Jimmy Page and his fellow skiffle players and also of the Winwood brothers, whose father was a semi-professional musician. So they grew up in households that were steeped in Black music.

The second is the influence of the church. Religion was a greater presence in middle-class life in those days, which gave British boys a musical education that was closer to the American South than anything they will experience today. Steve Winwood sang in his parish church choir for years as a boy, as did Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. (Rod Argent of The Zombies was even a chorister at St Albans Abbey.)

Chris Welch writes in his biography of Steve Winwood:

Just like so many of the original black soul artists, Steve's earliest singing experiences were on sanctified ground. When the church organist had finished playing, taken his cassock off and got on his bicycle to go home, Steve and Muff used to stay in church with a couple of other friends, switch on the pump and get the organ going.

With Steve pedalling furiously he sang out "What I'd Say", his voice echoing to the rafters of St John's, Perry Barr.

It is all a long way from Simon Cowell and a far better musical education than anyone is likely to get today.

I was wondering why people have been landing on this blog over the past couple of days after searching for "Moura Budberg".

The answer is that there was a documentary about her in BBC4's Storyville series. In it Dimitri Collingridge attempted to uncover the truth about her life. Moura is his great, great aunt, just as she is Nick Clegg's.

You can watch the documentary via the BBC website for the next few days.

It comes to much the same conclusion that I did in my New Statesman piece. While Moura undoubtedly had connections in the intelligence world, the idea of her as a spy was largely the stuff of legend - and she helped to write that legend herself.

Labels: Moura Budberg, Nick Clegg, Television

Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.

I have written about the Hornes and the Paddicks before on this blog.

Horney problems

The Bank Holiday weekend gave Westminster time to reflect on last week’s elections. Will Boris Johnson’s victory in London prove a mixed blessing for David Cameron? Has the Tories’ success in the North been overhyped? Once again they failed to win a single seat in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle or Hull.

And, closer to home… Why, when the Liberal Democrats are such strong supporters of proportional representation, do we do so badly whenever it is used? And why, presented with the opportunity, did more Londoners not give the Brian Paddick their first preference and opt for Boris or Ken with their second?

My impression is that we have become extremely proficient at flooding individual wards or constituencies with workers and squeezing third-party votes during those campaigns. But are we as good at winning people’s support for a Liberal agenda between elections or across a whole city?

One consolation from the London campaign was the revelation that Brian is a relation - second cousin once removed, to be precise - of the Round the Horne star Hugh Paddick.

Round the Horne was the cult radio comedy of the 1960s. In it the urbane Kenneth Horne proved, long before Humphrey Lyttelton, that you can get away with the most outrageous innuendo on the BBC so long as you have impeccable Establishment style and connections. Hugh Paddick is best remembered for playing Julian to Kenneth Williams’s Sandy in the show.

But a connection between Round the Horne and Liberalism should not be such a surprise, because Kenneth Horne’s father was a Liberal MP. Silvester Horne, who sat for Ipswich between 1910 and 1914, was a Congregationalist minister and a celebrated orator and preacher.

Kenneth was a little boy when his father died. When in adult life he described Winston Churchill to a friend as a great orator, that friend replied: "Yes, but then you never heard your father speak, did you?"

Some would conclude that the son who revelled in the smut of Round the Horne can have had little in common with his clergyman father. But Kenneth Horne was not without a puritan streak too. He once said: "I am all for censorship. If ever I see a double entendre I whip it out."

Norfolk Blogger has quite rightly awarded Headline of the Week to the BBC for its:

Labels: Awards

The Yorkshire Evening Press reports

Steve Galloway is resigning as leader of City of York Council, after five years in charge.

The Liberal Democrat chief, who has been a councillor for 35 years and party leader for the past nine, said he had enjoyed his time in the top job, but it was time to hand over to somebody younger.

I mention this because Steve was a Liberal councillor when I was a student in York nearly 30 years ago. In those days the idea that the Liberals might one day run the city would have seemed pretty fanciful. Steve's career is a reminder of how far we have come.

Steve was also the Liberal candidate for the York constituency at three general elections, but in the Alliance years the seat was allocated to the SDP and fought by someone called Vince Cable. I wonder what happened to him?

Labels: Liberal Democrats

On an Overgrown Path (from whom I have borrowed the photograph) writes:

He is buried alongside his wife in the cemetery of St Veran on the outskirts of Avignon and his tomb, seen in my photos, is marked 'En hommage à John Stuart Mill Défenseur des Femmes'. The plaque has been added by Centre d'Hébergement et de Réinsertion Sociale "Stuart Mill", a refuge for women victims of violence in Paris.

That blog also has another photograph showing the plaque in greater detail.

Labels: John Stuart Mill

With supporters like Leo from Antioch, CA, how can he lose?

Thanks to Paula Keavney.

Labels: Cats, US Politics

The Sheffield Star has been looking at the local election results in the city last week and calculating what they could mean at the next general election.

Labels: Liberal Democrats

Labels: Films, Spencer Davis Group, Steve Winwood, Trivia

The Derby Evening Telegraph reports:

The Liberal Democrats were tonight on the verge of controlling Derby City Council after the Tories said no to any power-sharing agreement.

The decision was made at a group meeting of the Conservatives in the city.

The only way Labour could have held on to control of the city was if the Conservatives had agreed to work with them in exchange for seats on the cabinet as they have for the past two years.

Labels: Liberal Democrats

This blog loves British films and trivial facts. And one of its favourite trivial facts is that Hazel Blears appeared in A Taste of Honey as a little girl.

At the time of Labour's deputy leadership election she reminisced to the Daily Mail:

"The director wanted a couple of street urchins in the film and saw me and my brother playing in the street, asked me mum if we could be in the film and, being the proud working-class woman that she is, she made absolutely sure we had our Sunday best clothes on and were all scrubbed up.

"So, if you ever see A Taste Of Honey, right at the beginning, then you'll see two of the best-dressed urchins that you're ever likely to see.

"You can see me in the opening credits. I'm wearing a tartan skirt and am bouncing a ball.

I have not seen the film, but this interview suggests that this photograph from Britmovie shows a five-year-old Hazel Blears with the film's star Rita Tushingham.

And then there's Stephen Pound in Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush...

Labels: Films, Trivia

Heresy Corner presents a video of Jeremy Vine's excruciating Wild West skit and then adds:

Either those responsible were actually drunk at the time, or they assumed that most of the audience would be. But this was local election coverage. Most normal people don't sit up most of the night waiting to hear whether Reading has moved to No Overall Control. Those who do have the obsessive interest in politics required to tune in to this sort of show want to know facts, put into context by basic, easy-to-follow maps and graphs.

Far from helping to explain anything, this skit served only to confuse matters. I think the message had something to do with Lib Dem poll numbers, but it's hard to tell exactly what. It reminds me of one of Humph's convoluted metaphors designed to illustrate the concept behind One Song to the Tune of Another.

"It might help to think of the Lib Dem leader as a Wild West gunslinger and the percentage share of the vote as old cans hanging from strings in an old-style saloon. Nick Clegg's task is to use his gun - that is, his campaign team - to "hit", that is, reach, the "tin cans", or the target number of votes. But, I hear you ask, what do a lot of empty beer cans rattling around in a bar have to do with the Liberal Democrats? In the studio we've got Charles Kennedy."

Labels: Television

I quote:

A Belfast beauty Queen is set to fight a by-election in a bid to "glamorise" the House of Commons.

Gemma Garrett, who is the current Miss Great Britain, is standing in the safe Labour seat of Crewe and Nantwich.

We shall see.

Richard Holme - Lord Holme of Cheltenham - has died aged 71. It was widely known within the party that he had been ill with cancer for some time.

There are full obituaries on the Daily Telegraph and Guardian sites of this prominent Liberal and Lib Dem adviser, who was able to move from David Steel's side to Paddy Ashdown's without breaking step. He narrowly failed to win the Cheltenham seat on several occasions.

Anyone joining the Liberator Collective in the 1980s was required to regard Richard Holme as a hate figure, but he was always charming when I came across him.

Labels: Liberal Democrats, Liberator

They called Fischer vs Spassky the "Match of the Century" - until now.

Labels: Chess

From my essay in Liberalism: Something to Shout About, which was published at the 2006 Liberal Democrat Conference:

Labels: Boris Johnson, London

I thought this piece of trivia might prove too good to be true. But this page on Graham Taylor-Paddick's website shows that Brian Paddick is the second cousin once removed of the Round the Horne star Hugh Paddick (far left in the photo).

I found it via Brian Paddick's Wikipedia entry.

Now read about Kenneth Horne's father, who was a Liberal MP. Or if you are young, read about Round the Horne.

Labels: London, Radio, Trivia

This week's nominations were dominated by the local elections, and the London Mayoral election in particular. So with thanks to NewsBiscuit for the photograph, let's get on with it.

Those elections in full

First a mention for the three bloggers who were featured on the BBC election coverage: Luke Akehurst, Iain Dale and Alix Mortimer. They all did a much better job than Jeremy Vine or David bloody Dimbleby.

And also a mention to Andy D'Agorne for recognising that the elections did not just take place in London. He went to Sheffield and saw strange goings on involving postal votes and taxis.

So to London. Susanne Lamido (that's Susanne with an 's') attended the count at City Hall, and The Daily (Maybe) has all the results.

"One of the ten cleverest men men in Britain" is worried that Londoners did not understand the electoral system, so I suppose we should be too. Pandemian has some ideas for making voting more exciting. And Burning Our Money gives reasons why you should have voted early and often.

So how will Mayor BoJo do?

Guido Fawkes declares the official liberation of London, whereas Rachel in North London fears the city has elected a celebrity buffoon.

Croydonian speculates on Boris's first 100 days. The more cynical Diamond Geezer has produced a newsletter for him so that he can get some ideas. And Barkingside 21 detects a climate of change in London - as well as leading me to the picture above.

Cruella-Blog has collected a range of reactions to Boris's victory. Other reactions to the elections - in London and further afield - come from Elle Seymour and Ben Brogan. More reaction still comes from Liam Mac Uaid (Respect), Dave's Part (Old Labour) and A Blog from the Back Room (New Labour).

Oh, and there was a Camden Borough by-election in Highgate on Thursday. It was won by the Greens, but comment comes from the Labour-supporting Theo's Blog and Belsize Liberal Democrats.


Miscellany

Phew! We'll give politics a rest and look at more interesting things for a while.

Other things have been going on this week. Charlotte's Web has been writing. In the Aquarium has been potting and Mother of the Bride has been hatching, matching and dispatching.

Meanwhile Feminist Philosophers has been to the Fem 08 conference in Sheffield - this week's place to be if you are not in London.

Elsewhere Amused Cynicism explains why people go anti-science, Around My Kitchen Table writes of extreme sports and adrenaline rush deprivation and Bag's Rants invites you to find the man in the coffee beans.

It tells you something important about the right and left of your brain, apparently.


Environment

Ruscombe Green worries about the bees and the bats, while How Can I Recycle This? has ideas for old washing machine drums.

Back in London, Northwest 6 reports on the restoration of some green space in West Hampstead.


Health

Random Acts of Reality has received his first letter of thanks as an ambulance man.

NHS Blog Doctor detects "a little sleight of hand from those dear ladies at the Kent Midwifery Practice".


Blogging

The nominator admits that it is not British, but Jewcy is written by Mike Godwin of Godwin's Law fame - the first person to mention Hitler in a discussion thread has lost the argument. Here he marks the law's 18th birthday. "If Godwin's Law had been a child, this year it would be old enough to vote."

And Freeborn John looks at why some people have such laudatory Wikipedia entries.


Politics

To finish off, we go back to a few political postings that did not concern Thursday's elections.

Gaian Economics urges the establishment of a "housing entitlement day".

Freeborn John has a second nomination, this one looking at government plans to force people learning to drive to use an approved driving instructor.

And Burning our Money turns up again too, looking at Gordon Brown's plans for a Great Leap Forward.

Finally, Blood and Treasure has found the perfect word to describe the prime minister.


Goodbye

Thanks for all the nominations this week. If I have missed any out or the link does not work, please let me know.

Next week's Roundup will be at Redemption Blues. And you can find the rota for future weeks here.

As ever, please send your nominations to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Ciao.

Labels: Boris Johnson, Britblog Roundup, London

A BBC report on the union's 2007 conference:

Labels: Education

No great sociological significance this week, just a great and forgotten record.

Fifth Dimension has the US hit with "Up, Up and Away" and also worldwide hits with a medley from the hippy musical Hair.

Not that they look much like hippies in this.

Labels: Music

Martin Bright writes on his New Statesman blog:

Labels: Boris Johnson, Conservative Party

For a party that is so keen on proportional representation, the Liberal Democrats do disappointingly badly when the system is actually employed.

In London neither the use of the alternative vote for the Mayoral election nor the top-up lists used for the Greater London Authority elections have done anything to boost Lib Dem support.

In Wales we do very well where local authorities are elected by first past the post, and Assembly elections reflect our strength in a handful of Westminster seats. But we have yet to make much of an impact on the second "list" votes. The same broadly holds true for Scottish Parliament elections.

(Let me know if I have got any of this wrong. News was always slow to reach Market Harborough.)

Why is this?

Ironically, it is because we are very good at working the first past the post system we so despise. At ward or even constituency level it is possible to flood the area with workers, and we are very good at fighting local campaigns and at putting a tactical squeeze on the third party.

Our failure to do well when more proportional systems are used - granted they are not what we would choose, but is there evidence that we would do any better under the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies? - suggests that we are less good at identifying ourselves in the public mind in with a positive and unique policy agenda.

Granted that is far easier said than done, but should we Liberal Democrats be praying that we never achieve our heart's desire - proportional representation?

Labels: Liberal Democrats, London

Not London, Ludlow.

Labels: Shropshire

But how do I do it?

Full details here.

Labels: Britblog Roundup

I had intended to blog the results last night, but did not get any further than offering an unrivalled service to Derby Arboretum Ward. Incidentally, we made a total of five gains in Derby and are now the largest party on the council there.

But I was driven off to bed by Jeremy Vine and David Dimbleby. Vine's attempts to make the programme interesting were merely embarrassing. Why can't the BBC grasp that the only people who watch results programmes after midnight are political junkies anyway, so they don't want gimmicks. And why oh why do they have to get David Dimbleby out of mothballs for these programmes? Here's why, come to think of it.

And did I really hear Charles Kennedy say we should look particularly for the results in Somerset? There were no elections in Somerset yesterday.

As to the results, I think it fair to say that the Liberal Democrats have done significantly better than we expected. Hull and Sheffield were gained: Newscastle and (just) Liverpool were retained. And we have also done well in areas where we have MPs (Winchester, Cheltenham, Colchester) or hope to make gains next time (Watford, St Albans).

Last night's results will also consolidate Nick Clegg's position. This is welcome, though I suspect that the results had far more to do with the hard work and professionalism of our local parties than with his leadership.

The Liberal Democrats are not about to sweep into government, but nor are we going to go away. We are what we are: a party that consistently wins the support of a quarter or just less of the British people and has areas of considerable local strength scattered across the country.

Labels: Liberal Democrats, Television

My column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Unhealthy food talk

On Friday all sensible Conservatives were away working in the local elections and Boris Johnson was busy in London. Which left just the real Tory Party at Westminster. And you can forget all that stuff about letting sunshine win the day and hugging huskies, because nothing has really changed.

The first piece of business was a private member’s bill, promoted by Labour’s Nigel Griffiths, to ban television advertisements for unhealthy food before the 9 p.m. watershed. Griffiths had an impressive range of organisations - Diabetes UK, the British Medical Association, Cancer Research UK - lined up behind him.

For the Lib Dems, Martin Horwood was an enthusiastic supporter while Don Foster clearly had doubts.

And, yes, this is the sort of bill that does divide parties. What was notable about Friday was not that there were Conservative MPs opposing Griffiths but how weak their arguments were.
Take Nigel Evans, whose many radio appearances have played a small but honourable part in establishing the Tories in the public mind as the nasty party. "Does the hon. Gentleman really want to go down in history as the man who killed Ronald McDonald?" he asked, pleased with his own cleverness.

But does anyone in Britain like Ronald McDonald? Whatever their views on junk food, whatever their views on McDonald’s, there is not a person in the country who would not rejoice if that gruesome clown were found hanging from one of his golden arches.

Other Tories were concerned with the effect a ban would have on the funding of children’s television or announced that the National Farmers Union is against the bill. And others urged the House to safeguard the advertising industry. That industry, you understand, is worth billions, but oddly its products have absolutely no effect on the behaviour of the children who are exposed to them.

So what is the Conservative answer to child obesity? Again and again they urged parental responsibility. And parental responsibility is a wonderful thing. But the thought that those parents are entitled to get together and use the institutions of a democratic society to make it a little easier to exercise that responsibility still seems beyond the sort of Tory MP who finds himself at a loose end in London on Fridays.

Labels: children, Health, House Points

The Arboretum ward, no less.

Derby, incidentally, is run by a Lab/Con coalition.

And there is more on Derby Arboretum here.

Labels: Liberal Democrats