• It's not a Conservative Government, Thank Goodness!

    Updated: 2011-09-30 17:54:25
    TweetOn the eve of the Conservative Conference, Pritchard, the malevolent 1922 Committee Secretary, has uttered a statement many Lib Dems will be relieved to hear; "[Tory] natural supporters have frustration that we cannot do everything they would expect from a Conservative Government" All hail a sigh of relief. Liberal Democrats can stand proud on the ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 14

    Updated: 2011-09-30 17:34:20
    Cllr Chris Blakeley said it "needs more than five minutes to understand the ramifications" and asked when the next meeting was. The answer given by Mrs. Shirley Hudsepth was the 30th November. Cllr Les Rowlands said there were no time issues. Cllr Chris Blakeley said this needed to be conveyed to Mr. Morton. Cllr Dave ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 13

    Updated: 2011-09-30 17:26:50
    The Chair, Brian Cummings said he wanted to consider an urgent request in respect of whistleblowing from Mr. Martin Morton. Cllr Pat Williams declared a prejudicial interest in this matter as Mr. Martin Morton had made a complaint about her. Cllr Denise Roberts declared a prejudicial interest in this matter as Mr. Martin Morton had ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 12

    Updated: 2011-09-30 16:57:19
    Cllr Pat Williams asked about the two instances of 125 days and 95 days were there any more? Malcolm Flanagan said he didn't have the details. He pointed out that how long complaints took was measured differently internally to how the Local Government Ombudsman measured them. Cllr Pat Williams said the spokespersons should be made ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 10

    Updated: 2011-09-30 16:31:50
    Cllr John Salter said he would disagree for the first time [with the Deputy Mayor Cllr Gerry Ellis], he called regularly and calls were answered within three to four seconds. He though they were always excellent, but his local library was a bit untidy. Cllr Dave Mitchell said that his local library was brilliant. Cllr ...

  • Time the British woke up to the crisis in Europe

    Updated: 2011-09-30 16:30:30
    It is a commonplace for Britain's politicos to sadly shake their heads and complain that the Euro crisis demonstrates a woeful lack of political leadership. Regardless of the fairness of this charge in respect of Angela Merkel, say, it clearly has resonance for Britain's own leaders. There seem to be two camps: ravingly impractical Eurosceptics, and sheer paralysis from everybody else. The mood amongst Europhiles (as I witnessed at fringe meeting at the Lib Dem conference) is akin to deep depression. It is time for this to change. To be fair some key players have been showing something less than ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 9

    Updated: 2011-09-30 16:19:37
    The Chair, Brian Cummings moved to the item entitled Mystery Shopping. Malcolm Flanagan said that at the last meeting on the 4th July, committee members had asked for details on Mystery Shopping which had been done on the call centre, One Stop Shops and libraries. He said they don't ask specific questions, but make up ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 8

    Updated: 2011-09-30 16:07:08
    Cllr Pat Williams said she was interested if Bill Norman had talked to the Chief Executive and that [the staffing issue] was really an Employment and Appointments issue, if there were ongoing pressures they should be made aware. Cllr Dave Mitchell said there would be a saving to the authority, if the correct legal services ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 7

    Updated: 2011-09-30 15:53:08
    Cllr Dave Mitchell said at the original meeting it had been deferred because of the Localism Bill. He accepted the recommendations and would monitor it closely. He could see the reason behind the question about where it would go to if it was out of Bill [Norman]'s hands. He said legal could take 2 1/2 ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 6

    Updated: 2011-09-30 15:38:51
    Cllr Bill Davies said it was on record the length of time spent on caution. Cllr Chris Blakeley said the time limit over improvement was not twelve months, but this could be withdrawn if it was the will of committee. He said we want to see in action how it operates over twelve months. He ...

  • Strong candidates, strong records, strong results

    Updated: 2011-09-30 15:34:00
    There were five principal local council by-elections held on Thursday 29th September. We held two seats, the Tories held one, Plaid one and Plaid gained one off Llais Gwynedd (Voice of Gwynedd). There was one parish or town council by-election results reported to ALDC - a Tory hold. [IMG: The Shropshire team] Bishops Castle is a geographically large rural division on the Welsh border of Shropshire Unitary authority. Newton and Welshpool in Montgomeryshire are closer than either Shrewsbury or Ludlow. We won it 20 years ago after the hard graft of Peter Philips whose resignation caused the by-election. Peter suffered ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 5

    Updated: 2011-09-30 15:22:36
    The Chair, Brian Cummings asked committee if proper timescales and a monitoring regime would be sufficient or not? Cllr Chris Blakeley said he didn't believe it would. He thought Bill Norman had been given enough opportunities and it should be "taken out of his hands". He passed a resolution around members of the committee for ...

  • Standards Committee 29/9/2011 Part 4

    Updated: 2011-09-30 15:09:29
    Cllr Chris Blakeley said that when Bill Norman joined Wirral Council he was aware of the resources, that he uses as an excuse. He said that Bill Norman says we should adopt the protocol, so that they can be held to account. There had been "poor performance" and "no improvement" for years. Cllr Pat Williams ...

  • The Coalition Government's shaky green agenda

    Updated: 2011-09-30 11:08:00
    Chris Huhne is doing a lot of good work as Energy Secretary to mark out the UK Coalition's green agenda but his work is in danger of being undermined by his cabinet colleagues. This proposal by Eric Pickles for example to put aside £250 million to tempt English Councils to revert to weekly bin collections is just bizarre. On the plus side it shows that Ministers cannot just do what they like, they need to work with Councils to get things done. On the minus side the proposal threatens to undo all the good work being done to increase recycling ...

  • Join the Liberal Youth invasion

    Updated: 2011-09-30 00:26:55
    After a very successful Federal Conference earlier this month, Liberal Youth will hold its Autumn Conference on 22nd & 23rd October. It's in the Roman town of Colchester* (home to the UK's oldest market on record). Conference, as all Liberal Democrats know, is a fantastic opportunity for party members to shape policies and hold elected officers to account – and Liberal Youth is no different. Along with all the usual reports from officers (and the odd constitutional amendment), there will be policy debates on the Arab Spring, MMR jabs, Women's Rights & Bank Shares. As we have seen from this ...

  • 2009 Queensland Election Statistical Analysis

    Updated: 2011-09-15 14:54:13
    I've prepared an statistical anlysis of the 2009 Queensland Election and published it at my election archive site. You can visit the election archive via this link or go straight to the 2009 Queensland Election Analysis via this link.

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