Carly Simon: It Was So Easy Then

This choice will annoy Iain Sharpe, but it serves him right for giving up blogging.

Carly Simon's LP "No Secrets" reminds me of taking my finals at York (a girl I knew had a copy) and also (along with Paul Simon's LP "One Trick Pony") of the summer I bought my house in the 1980s.

Iain says:

Carly Simon doubtless saw herself somewhere in the Carole King/Joni Mitchell singer-songwriter mould. But although ‘You’re so vain’ is one of the great put-down songs, there is little else here to move, inspire or amuse. Lacks King’s crisp turn of phrase and strong tunes or Mitchell’s powerful insights into the human condition.

It is many years since I listened to Carole King, but I have to agree that Carly Simon is not in the same class as Joni Mitchell. But I still like the "No Secrets" LP - except "You're So Vain", which I have heard so often that I can no longer listen to it.

In this recent live version of one of the songs on the LP Carly Simon is accompanied by Ben and Sally, the two children she had with James Taylor - who ought to have featured here by now too.

The superior version of this song from "No Secrets" is also on Youtube and the words aren't that dad are they?

And now we are grown, with debts and regrets
And broken hearts and sentimental schemes.
Now every tender failure seems to overthrow old dreams,
Love can lead a normal woman to extremes.

The contradictions of Mark Oaten

Two years ago I wrote about the contradictions of Mark Oaten's career.

How he attempted to convert the party to his "tough Liberalism" when he was the Lib Dem shadow home secretary and later claimed that he had wanted to close all prisons but could not get his colleagues' support.

How he declared himself to be a new kind of MP more interested in his constituency than Westminster and then went on to accept two of the most Westminster insider jobs going.

How he had been visibly ambitious to become Liberal Democrat leader all along, but proved laughably unprepared when he got the chance to stand for the postion.

I was reading Mark Oaten's memoirs in Waterstone's the other day (as you do) and came across two more examples.

He writes at length about the absurdity of the Commons and its stuffy procedures, then tells us two pages later that he became an associate editor of the stuffy House Magazine.

He complains that his critics saw the Peel Group, of which he was the prime mover, as an attempt to shift Liberal Democrat policy in a Conservative direction. Two pages later he admits that he seriously considered picking up the phone and telling David Cameron that he wanted to join the Tories.

Maybe we all seem equally contradictory to people who do not know us well. Certainly, we tend to forgive and even celebrate contradictions in our friends.

But I remain mystified by Mark Oaten, the trajectory of his career and what he hoped to achieve.

If you want a good bonfire party go to the Catholics

As is now traditional the best firework display in Market Harborough last night was the one given by the town's Roman Catholic primary school.

It is a pleasing paradox and a rejoinder to those who think like Combom:

Read your history books, bonfire night is an anti-catholic, pro-parliamentary celebration - I'm not saying its right or wrong to celebrate it, my daughter isn't going to be the only child in the street with no fireworks - but you ought to realise whats going on!

Festivals mean what people today make them mean. Let's not strip our culture of all enjoyment for fear of giving offence to someone.

Britblog Roundup 247

Has the Redemption Blues.

Leicestershire autumn

Remembrance Sunday

Great Bowden public meeting on Focsa depot

I could not make the public meeting on the new Focsa depot in Great Bowden. According to the Harborough Mail, I was not the only one who was missing:

More than 120 people attended a meeting at Great Bowden Church Hall on Tuesday night to discuss the issue but representatives from Focsa and the council declined to attend.

The hall echoed with groans as meeting chairman, Harborough Lib Dem group chief Phil Knowles, revealed the council's deputy chief executive Kamal Mehta would not be attending.

The council said afterwards this was because the meeting was organised by a political party – the Lib Dems – and it was not appropriate for impartial officers to attend.

But Welham Lane resident Pete Goold said at the meeting it had been jointly organised with residents and was not political.

Mr Knowles added: "This has got nothing to do with politics. We have involved our MP, a Conservative, and Kevin Feltham [a Tory county councillor]. It has denied people the chance to have their questions answered."

The meeting did learn something remarkable though:

The meeting also heard from Roger Clarke, Focsa's former landlord at Pebble Hall Farm, Theddingworth, who said Focsa had been asked to leave his site after it placed increasing demands on the farm.

Focsa moved onto the farm in April after it took over the district council's waste contract from Veolia. Focsa did not have planning permission at that site either and submitted a retrospective application to Northants County Council.

All of which makes this Harborough Mail report from earlier in the year interesting:

Firefighters were called out to another blaze at Harborough District Council's recycling facility.

Fire crews from Harborough were called out to Pebble Hall Farm off the A4304 Lutterworth Road in Theddingworth at about 3pm on Thursday (May 7).

They arrived to find about 700 tonnes of compostable material on fire.

It is the third time in just over a month that firefighters have attended the site.

I sense that this story will run and run.

Road Sign of the Week

I assume this has been erected to draw drivers' attention to the wonder or improbability of our very existence.

Quote of the Day features Louis Walsh

Ignore Iain Dale: this is better.

Here is Louis Walsh quoted in last Sunday's Observer talking about Boyzone's first single:

They had never been in a recording studio before. And the truth is, most of them were never in a recording studio again.

Justice: Jersey Style

Thanks to John Hemming for pointing us to a news report on channelonline.tv:

A Jersey accountant jailed in 2007 for six years for money laundering has had his conviction quashed.

His defence council took his case to the Jersey Court Of Appeal but it was rejected. They then took it to the Privy Council - the highest court islanders can appeal to - where it was finally quashed.

The judge, Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Nice was branded 'sarcastic, mocking and patronising.' He interrupted Mr Michel 273 times as he was giving evidence. It's now expected to cost the Jersey tax payer millions of pounds. Mr Michel's defence lawyer says in retrospect, he should have objected more at the time.

Now watch the video.

England beat Diamond Eagles by 185 runs

Brief inconsequential comment (and a link to a match report) at The Corridor.

Being against the Daily Mail is not enough

Introducing the Britblog Roundup a couple of weeks ago I suggested that "sometimes being against the Daily Mail takes the place of constructive thought on the left". There is an example of this on Lib Dem Voice today, though it involves the Daily Express rather than the mail.

Ian Roberts begins today's Daily View 2x2 feature by talking about "daft health and safety scare stories":

A nice example appears in the Daily Express, which rails against “health and safety killjoys” who

"have forced a rugby club’s Guy Fawkes revellers to watch a film of a bonfire on television rather than enjoy the real thing."

Frustratingly for the Express, it turns out that nothing of the sort has happened. Faced with having to fill in paperwork, supply metal barriers and provide five marshalls to keep a crowd of 2,000 safe, the organisers have decided, in their own words to “come up with an original, imaginative and fun way to fill the void".

I am not sure that this story is quite as daft as Ian says. If you try to stage an event and find health and safety legislation makes it too difficult to stage, it is perfectly good idiomatic English to say you have been "forced" to abandon it.

And if Ian thinks that watching film of a bonfire is original, imaginative and fun... let's just say I don't agree with him. Come to that I am not sure this idea is so original. Ilfracombe Rugby Club did it last year.

But what worries more is what Ian goes on to say:

Maybe health and safety regulations go too far sometimes, but in my neck of the woods – across a population of a quarter of a million – not a single person ended up in casualty as a result of bonfire or firework injuries at guy fawkes celebrations last year, so perhaps there’s something to it.

Well what does he believe? Are present health and safety standards too onerious? And what do we Liberal Democrats as a whole believe?

Even since Labour came to power in 1997 I have been writing columns poking fun at their efforts to regulate things like fireworks and leylandii hedges.

I am not a parent and am no longer a local councillor, so it is easy for me to take the libertarian line. But to me these are the sort of issues that mark a clear boundary between us and Labour. Some of my fellow Liberal Democrats clearly see things differently.

Because, as things stands, whenever an issue which involves a sacrifice of individual liberty for the sake of public health you find Liberal Democrats on both sides of the debate. Both sides are convinced they are right and are being good Liberals - and the odds are that both will quote John Stuart Mill at you too.

If we are going to establish a clearer Liberal Democrat philosophy, and with it a firmer idea of what we stand for in the public mind, then we are going to have to do some hard philosophical work here.

We cannot remain sitting on the fence while laughing at the Mail and the Express for ever.

House Points: Antisocial Labour

Today's House Points from Liberal Democrat News.

True to form

When Labour popularised the idea of "antisocial behaviour" in the years before 1997, Liberals worried that we would see the police concerning themselves low-level nuisance behaviour by children and teenagers.

Because whenever the concept was invoked by Labour politicians they bundled these nuisances together with elements of obvious criminality like vandalism and aggressive begging.

It hasn’t turned out like that. When a senior Leicestershire police officer addressed the inquest into the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter in September he said: "I'm not sure if people know but low-level anti-social behaviour is mainly the responsibility of the council."

It looks as though Labour’s championing the concept of “anti social behaviour” has resulted in actions that were once seen as criminal is now taken more lightly. Chalk another one up to Tony Blair.

The death of Fiona Pilkington (who killed herself and her daughter after years of harassment) was in the mind of all MPs on Monday when a debate on antisocial behaviour. There was just one problem. The Pilkingtons lived in Barwell in Leicestershire. And Barwell is in the constituency of David Tredinnick.

We last saw him two weeks ago speaking on remote healing and Chinese astrology. He began appropriately enough this time, but he went on. And on. And on. He was pulled up twice by the deputy speaker but didn’t get the message until, as he was discussing Leicestershire long alley skittles, he was heckled from his own side. “Come on. There are six other people who want to speak,” growled Brooks Newmark.

A few brief points from the debate.

Chris Huhne complained that the ministry of justice is not implementing nationally a successful Liverpool community justice experiment. But I wonder if he is right. Local schemes often succeed because of remarkable individuals and unique conditions. They cannot always be reduced to bullet points on a set of PowerPoint slides.

Hazel Blears, we can exclusively reveal, is still alive. She is as partisan as ever and still paints Salford as a communitarian Shangri-La.

The Conservatives’ shadow home affairs minister is James Brokenshire. Is a broken shire part of David Cameron’s “broken Britain”?

And does Brooks Newmark have a sheepskin coat and a moustache? With a name like that he certainly ought to.

Soldiers' Stories: Northern Ireland

At 9 p.m. on Sunday the HISTORY Channel is showing Soldiers' Stories. This documentary tells the story of The Troubles from the perspective of the British soldiers who served there. Stretching from 1969 to 2007, this was the longest continuous deployment in the history of the British Army.

According to the press release I have been sent:

This documentary for HISTORY, presented by former soldier Ken Hames and based on the in-depth interviews conducted by Northern Ireland veteran Ken Wharton for his books on The Troubles, provides a new and unique insight into the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Soldiers have never before given such personal interviews and reveal stories of bombings, humour in the face of adversity, of strong comradeship and of heartache, from their own personal perspective.

Don't worry if you can't get the channel or miss the programme: next week I shall be running another of my quizzes and this time the prizes will be copies of the Soldiers' Stories DVD.

Opera Minima, Great Easton

Thanks to the Wartime Housewife I learn that the upper Welland Valley has its very own opera company:

Opera Minima offers a variety of opera-based events, including workshops, masterclasses and a range of style of performance from themed programmes to semi-staged double or triple bills, semi-staged with piano accompaniment.

Performances take place in The Old Corset Factory in Great Easton in Leicestershire (between Corby and Market Harborough) and in a variety of other venues and often include supper as well!

Harborough District Council meets in a converted corset factory too. There's a lot you can do with them if you show some imagination.

And there's more on the Opera Minima website.

Till the Cowdreys come home

I have just written another cricket-related post for The Corridor.

Wikio Top Lib Dem Blogs, November 2009

Once again there 14 Liberal Democrat blogs in the Wikio top 100 British political blogs. Liberal Bureaucracy has dropped out, but Andrew Reeves is a new entry and keeps up the Lib Dem numbers.

1 (5)	Liberal Democrat Voice	Falls 1
2 (12)	Mark Reckons	Climbs 1
3 (13)	Charlotte Gore	Falls 2
4 (27)	Liberal England	Falls 1
5 (28)	Liberal Vision	Falls 9
6 (34)	Stephen's Linlithgow Journal	Climbs 13
7 (44)	Caron’s Musings	Falls 3
8 (46)	Quaequam Blog!	Falls 17
9 (52)	Himmelgarten's Cafe	Falls 20
10 (53)	Peter Black	Falls 5
11 (54)	People’s Republic of Mortimer	Climbs 11
12 (66)	Miss S B (Jennie Rigg)	Climbs 9
13 (91)	Andrew Reeves Running Blog	New entry
14 (93)	Lynne Featherstone	Falls 3

David Howarth retires to spend more time with his books

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, has announced that he will be leaving the Commons at the next general election to concentrate upon his academic career.

I shall be sorry to see him go. He is one of the most able and Liberal of our MPs.

Still, an attractive seat has suddenly become available. As a service to ambitious young Lib Dems, here is the Visit Cambridge website.

Mr Eugenides remembers the Glasgow Hillhead byelection

Mr Eugenides writes this morning:

One of my all-time favourite political anecdotes concerns the 1982 Hillhead by election, for which the newly formed SDP selected their leader, Roy Jenkins, who had not hitherto been renowned for his connections with the city.

Strolling around the west end of Glasgow, the urbane Jenkins entered a newsagent's and, sighting the Asian shopkeeper, went to proffer a handshake. "So, how long have you been here, then?", asked Jenkins, to which the owner replied evenly, "Longer than you".

Daniel Hannan resigns Tory Euro spokesmanship to campaign for referendum

Hannan writes on his Daily Telegraph blog:

We need a broad movement within the Conservative Party that will push for referendums, citizens’ initiatives and the rest of the paraphernalia of direct democracy. I don’t just mean a referendum on Europe - though, naturally, that is the obvious place to start. I mean full-on Helvetic people power, as adumbrated in this best-selling publication. I have returned to the back benches in order to concentrate on building such a movement.

Hannan was the Tories' legal affairs spokesman in the European Parliament.

Thanks to Paul Waugh.