Harborough Conservatives want to keep dogs on the lead

You know how Conservatives are meant to be against red tape and petty regulations? That doesn't seems to apply here in Harborough.

From the Harborough Mail:

New control orders set to be introduced by Harborough District Council will make it illegal for owners to have their dogs off the lead in certain areas. 

The regulations include footpaths and cycleways – such as the Millenium (sic) Mile through Harborough – as well as grass verges, public sports pitches and car parks, cemeteries, churchyards and children’s play areas.

When I was a councillor back in the 1980s we brought in special dog walks in parks and play areas. Knocking on doors, I was impressed by the number of dog owners who also had young children and supported the move.

But this new idea from the Tory-run Harborough District Council seems a long way over the top to me.

And it has generated a campaign group to oppose it: Harborough Owners’ Walking Lobby.

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The article is behind the paper's paywall, so thanks to Liberal Democrat Voice for giving us a substantial quote from Paddy Ashdown's article in The Times this morning: "The danger is not diminished because there will be no centralised state database of the sort that Labour proposed. That is largely an irrelevance. These proposals bring into existence a series of statutorily required databases held by others, in a form dictated by the State, to which the State will have unfettered access."

"Latin America is talking about drugs like never before. The taboo that has long prevented open debate about drug policies has been broken -- thanks to a steadily deteriorating situation on the ground and the courageous stand taken by presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala and Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica." Huffington Post welcomes a shift in the drugs debate.

Ceasefire on the little-publicised case of Talha Ahsan, held in a maximum security prison for five years and due to be extradited to the US for offences that have never been clarified.

"The big issue I have with the Local Schools Network is the way that having, at the very least, foregone some significant educational opportunities for their own children, they try to pretend that they haven’t." Scenes From The Battleground replies to Fiona Millar.

Library Time Machine looks at street fashion from 1906. It's sad that future generations will think we all had pixelated faces at the start of the 21st century.

"If you are searching for the riverside atmosphere that once existed here, come one misty Autumn evening, enjoy a drink while watching the lights of passing boats gleaming through the raindrops upon the panes, and relish your proximity to the grim murky depths from the safety and warmth of the parlour." Spitalfields Life visits The Grapes in Limehouse.

Les Dawson and John Cleese

I remember watching the fourth and final series of Monty Python - the one made without John Cleese - religiously in 1974. Pretty soon to do so did become a matter of near-religious faith, because it was quite spectacularly unfunny. But maybe this would be the week when it was as funny as it used to be?

Meanwhile, John Cleese was appearing with Les Dawson in Sez Lez, which seems to have been largely written by David Nobbs. Unlike the fourth series of Monty Python, it was funny. And this sketch, at least, is still funny today.

Time for a bit of rewriting of comic history?

Bewildering First Sentence of the Day

Won by The Sun for its:

Women have been warned to beware of 'fake nudists' after several females were approached by naked men on a quiet beach.

A chance to blog about killing, sport, mental health or learning disablities

In my day job I work for the British Psychological Society. We have our Annual Conference in London next week and we are inviting bloggers and people from charities and pressure groups with a particular interest in the topic to three sessions.

They are...

A symposium on people with intellectual disabilities (also called learning disabilities and previously known as mental handicap) and sport. It will look both at how seeing athletes with intellectual disabilities taking part in elite sport may change the public perception of the public perception of people with intellectual disabilities in general and at how taking part in sport may benefit people with such disabilities themselves. Events at Sydney in 2000, where several members of the winning Spanish basketball team in the Paralympics turned out not to have intellectual disabilities at all, will also be discussed. This scandal led to the exclusion of events for people with intellectual disabilities from the Paralympics from subsequent games, but these events have been restored to the programme for London 2012. This symposium is on Thursday 19 April (12:00 to 13:00).

A showing of the documentary Hidden Battles, a documentary about the psychological impact
that killing has on five freedom fighters and soldiers. The film will be followed by an expert panel discussion. This session also takes place on Thursday 19 April (15:30 to 17:30).

A roundtable discussion on sport and mental health. This will take in both the psychological pressures that elite sport can exert on athletes and also look at ways that sport can benefit people problems with their mental health. This takes place on the morning of Friday 20 April.

If you have a work interest in one of these sessions or would like to blog about one of them, please send me an email by Friday evening.

Attendance is by invitation only and I cannot guarantee to get everyone who asks in. But if you have a good reason for wanting to attend I should be able to wangle you an invite.

How a police state came to Britain

I am currently reading The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians revelled in death and detection and invented modern crime by Judith Flanders.

It is a book that chimes with my belief that the 19th-century Britons were far more more exciting and exotic than it has long been fashionable to believe. Matthew Sweet's Inventing the Victorians is devoted to just this thesis.

On the train home this evening I came across a passage in Flanders' book that has an eerie contemporary resonance:

Before 1829, changes to the parish and watch systems had been blocked by a coalition of right-wing 'county' elements joined by their opposite numbers, the political Radicals. Both groups feared, for different reasons, that a professional force would destroy civil liberties, bringing in a system of secret-service spying to consolidate political power and introduce what was, in effect, a standing army. In short, they believed the new police would be 'expensive, tyrannical, and foreign', and most people felt they would 'rather be robb'd ... by wretches of desperate fortune than ministers'. 

Nonetheless the Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel, a political operator of brilliance, persuaded many that the rise in crime made some sort of solution imperative. There probably was no such rise - there was a rise in prosecutions, the consequence of a change in social expectations, and a growing intolerance of disorder; there were also more governmental surveys and early attempts at statistical analysis of crime figures.

Together these created an appearance of increasing crime. Peel may or may not have understood that this was a difference in perception, not reality; in either case he used this perception to promote his end.

Titanic - In Her Own Words

Being middle class, I sometimes fall asleep with Radio 4 on. In the small hours the same wavelength is  taken over by the BBC World Service and occasionally, when something particularly interesting is on, I wake up quite suddenly to hear it.

This is interesting, in that there must be a part of my mind that is alert, listening to the radio and then deciding to wake me up.

It happened last night, when Titanic - In Her Own Words was on:

To mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the BBC’s Sean Coughlan narrates one of the most authentic versions of events in existence. Using voice synthesis to re-create the strange, twitter-like, mechanical brevity of the original Morse code, this programme brings to life the tragedy through the ears of the wireless operators in the area that night. 

On the night of the disaster, the network of young Marconi wireless operators on different ships and land stations frantically communicated with each other across the cold expanses of the North Atlantic in an effort to mount a rescue for the doomed vessel. 

All these messages were recorded at the time in copper-plate handwriting, now scattered across the world in different collections, but together forming a unique archive.

it is a fascinating programme casting new light on fascinating but familiar story.

But I cannot entirely rule out the possibility that I awoke to hear it because I went to bed feeling a little guilty about passing on Lord Bonkers' take on the loss of the Titanic.

Liberal Democrat party election broadcast

I am nothing if not loyal, so here is the party's broadcast for next month's local elections.

Professor Randolph Barker wins Name of the Day

Puzzled reader: How can such a prosaic name win this prestigious award?

Liberal England replies: Because Professor Barker from Virginia Commonwealth University is the lead author of a study into the psychological benefits of having dogs in the workplace. It is published in the March issue of the International Journal of Workplace Health Management.

Theddingworth village hall

Theddingworth has a Norman church with significant monuments and a Congregational chapel from the early 19th century. But both were locked and the latter was impossible to photograph from the most desirable angle.

So instead here is the village hall. It did not make it into Pevsner, but the Victoria County History says:

John Smeeton, a Congregationalist ... built the Smeeton Institute nearby in 1893 as a memorial to his son, S. P. Smeeton (d. 1889). The institute is a single-storied building in the Tudor style and contains a reading room and a billiard room.

I don't suppose it does any more, but at least it is still open.

Lord Bonkers on the sinking of the Titanic

Lord Bonkers, who was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10, writes exclusively for Liberal England

Can it really be 100 years since the Titanic sailed? I remember how proud the White Star Line was of its new ship and how I encouraged the first Lady Bonkers to book a cabin on the maiden voyage. Sadly, she did not share my enthusiasm for the enterprise.

I say 'sadly', let me hasten to add, because I am in no doubt that, had she been aboard, things would have turned out very differently. She would have taken the command from the hands of that booby Smith and ensured that the lifeboats were properly launched. Indeed, I cannot entirely rule out the possibility that she would have persuaded the iceberg to change its course by giving it One of Her Looks.

After the loss of the ship on that dreadful night, I had that iceberg towed to Rutland Water and displayed it there as a tourist attraction. At first it did well, with the queue of charabancs extending as far as Oakham, but after a few years one began to hear comments like “I should have thought it would be bigger than that” and “I told you we should have gone to the Pork Pie Museum instead.”

Eventually, the thing simply melted away and I consumed the last of it in a stiff gin and tonic after hearing the news that we had lost a safe seat in a Suffolk County Council by-election.

Kenneth Clarke on why politicians must sometimes say no to the security services

Jerry Hayes writes on Dale & Co. today:

I fear that I was over optimistic when I wrote that Nick Clegg had scuppered the sinister un-Conservative, un-British and certainly un-Liberal surveillance and secret trial proposals, as the fight back from the intelligence services has begun. You will notice that over the next few days distinguished columnists and chosen MPs will be shroud waving that unless these anti democratic proposals are put in place nobody will be able to sleep safely in their beds.

Kenneth Clarke said much the same thing in 2005 when opposing Labour's attempt to introduce house arrest to the British legal system:

There is a danger in our system of politics, which I have seen, that senior politicians and senior officials who have access to an exciting and hidden world of security will get carried away with their excitement. They can sometimes become vulnerable to advice to do things that, with hindsight, are not altogether wise ... However, the idea that the public often have - that if the security services and the police demand something, it is unpatriotic for the House of Commons to refuse it - would be dangerous for us to accept.

Today, of course, Clarke is one of the ministers trying to persuade the Commons to accept the idea of secret trials.

To understand why it is so important that we defeat his proposals, read Ian Cobain's Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials in the Guardian today

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Liberal Youth has a new policy on internships, reports Callum Morton: "Not only does it call for those on internships or work experience to be paid £2.60 per hour, but it also calls for politicians to be the first to clear up their act." Quite right too.

Nick Pickles, the director of Big Brother Watch, responds to Theresa May and Ken Clarke's letter to MPs regarding new surveillance powers and closed-door courts on Conservative Home: "Let me also ask a simple question – if this is so essential, why has it not been put in place before the Olympics? If Parliamentary time was the issue, perhaps we should have waited with the Health and Social Care Bill and fixed this problem first?"

The Coalition is supposed to favour localism reforms are thought to be aligned with a preference for decentralisation amongst the general public, but Joan Costa Font argues on the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog that the new arrangements for health and education funding point towards greater centralisation and less local accountability.

Stumbling and Mumbling argues that we live in an anti-meritocracy.

The number of Twitter followers you have and the exact wording matter less than you think, says Jared Keller in the Atlantic. What makes a difference is having the right message for the right people.

Another Nickel in the Machine looks at the heyday of Mary Quant, the mini skirt and the Chelsea Palace on the King’s Road: "Another very popular show that came from Granada’s King’s Road studio was the variety show called Chelsea at Nine. It ran for three series and purposely took advantage of the studio’s location in the capital to feature artists that were appearing in town. This meant that sometimes you would get one of the finest jazz musicians on earth playing after a comedian that would struggle to get on the end of a bill in Skegness."

Sculpture at Foxton locks

Back in November 2008 I wrote of the old inclined plane at Foxton:

Over the years the remains have been cleaned up and interpreted half to death.

That process now seems to have spread more widely: you can find this group on the towpath above the top lock.

Charles Masterman and modern British art

Tall Tales from the Trees is written by Colin Salter, who turns out to be a distant relative of this blog's hero Charles Masterman.

In a post yesterday he wrote about Masterman's role in British propaganda during World War I:

One of his successes there was the introduction of the concept of the War Artist. In the last two years of the war he sent more than ninety artists to make a visual record of events in Europe. 

Although there were limitations on what they could exhibit during the war, they were given a fairly free hand in what and where they could paint. The long term legacy of the artists, who included Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash and Augustus John, is an important one.

I have read that the British made a conscious effort to ally themselves with modern art in WWI to emphasise that they were on the side of freedom and progress. Similarly, I have seen it argued the CIA is supposed to have encouraged Abstract Expressionism during the Cold War to make Soviet Socialist Realism look even more out of the mainstream.

Whatever the truth of these claims, this is a good place to point out that, perhaps as a result of Masterman's innovation, the art galleries at the Imperial War Museum are an unexpectedly good place for lovers of 20th-century British art to visit.

Salter also introduces us to Charles' brother Walter S. Masterman. Imprisoned for embezzlement while working as a fishery inspector in Grimsby, he later reinvented himself as a successful crime novelist.

Aprile Millo: Ineggiamo

This, a rare and seasonal excursion into the world of opera for my Sunday music video, is the Easter hymn - or "Ineggiamo" - from Pietro Mascagni's 1890 one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana.

Me Monk. Me Mander translates the words for us:

Let us sing hymns, the Lord is not dead.
Shining, He has unsealed the tomb,
Let us sing hymns to the risen Lord—
ascended today to the glory of Heaven.

Swimming and poverty

A month ago, six African-American teenagers drowned in a single incident in Louisiana, prompting soul-searching about why so many young black Americans can't swim

reports BBC News. The article goes on to discuss the reason for black children's inability to swim, suggesting that poverty and historic segregation are to blame.

Which put me in mind of this passage from Bevis by Richard Jefferies (published in 1882):

For seventy years he had laboured in that place, and never once gone out of sight of the high Down yonder, and in all that seventy years no one till Bevis and Mark, and now their pupil Jack, had learned to swim. Bevis's Governor was out of the question, he had crossed the seas. But of the true country-folk, of all who dwelt round about these waters, not one had learned to swim. 

Very likely no one had learned since the Norman Conquest. When the forests were enclosed and the commonality forbidden to hunt, the spirit of enterprising exercise died out of them. Certainly it is a fact that until quite recently you might search a village from end to end and not find a swimmer; and most probably if you found one now he would be something of a traveller, and not a home-staying man.

I am not sure I believe the history here, though the parallels between black American slavery and the Norman yoke are enticing.

What I do believe is Jefferies' observations of life in 19th-century rural England. This is just the sort of unique insight - thrown out in an aside - that you get from his work.

Lord Bonkers on Trenton Oldfield and the Boat Race protest

Lord Bonkers writes exclusively for Liberal England:

I can remember the year a Soviet submarine disrupted the Boat Race. These Marxists used to be more formidable

A seasonal winner for Headline of the Day

Well done This is Somerset:

Stretch of A39 closed after hand grenade is found during Easter Egg Hunt

Theddingworth railway station

If you approached Theddingworth station along the gated road from Laughton and saw the station master's house, signal box and station building, you might fear being held up by a mixed freight or a stopping train to Rugby. But the station closed, along with the whole line from Stamford via Market Harborough to Rugby, in June 1966.

That station master's house is now a private residence and the people who live there obviously respect the site's history. The level crossing gates and signal box are well maintained and there is even a Theddingworth sign on the remaining platform - though it's a bugger to photograph without trespassing.