Author Archives: Mark Pack

One of my third-floor colleagues, Andrew, is doing the Great North Run this year and raising money for charity:

I have decided to do this run to help one of my best friends, Belinda.  I need to say no more, for those of you who know her, she is fab, cuddly and just the best friend anyone could have.

In order to help Andrew get in shape, I have volunteered to eat for him any chocolate that comes so that he doesn’t need worry about falling prey to temptation. Sadly, he’s not yet taken up my offer.

He’s also started taking the …

The Guardian has the details of the latest calculations put together by the Liberal Democrats.

Austin Mitchell writes in today’s Independent about how a family from his constituency got deported. The whole story adds up to a damning indictment of the way Labour ministers run the system – acting slowing, turning up late and leaving early, leaving key doucments untranslated from Urdu, and more.

Mitchell concludes:

It leaves a nasty taste. An out-of-control Immigration and Nationality Directorate is doing what it wants to get deportations up. The minister goes along, ratifies its decisions (he hardly ever rejects them), observes its deadlines and strings MPs along, pretending to listen while doing nothing. … Perhaps we’ll win enough National …

Via Peter Black comes this story of trouble for Welsh Assembly candidate Angela Burns:

Former Welsh Conservative chairman Sir Eric Howells says he would support an unofficial Tory candidate in May’s assembly election. He says members from outside have taken over the Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire party, and he and others would back an unnamed rival candidate.

You can read the rest of the report on the BBC’s site.

So says today’s story in the Sunday Telegraph…

A Labour member has boasted to other colleagues about a dirty tricks campaign that helped Labour in the last May’s local elections in Lambeth.

In a leaked exchange from Labour’s official online discussion forums, a Labour party member wrote:

There was a brilliant campaign in Lambeth in the last local election, with two ‘grassroots’ campaigns put up by concerned locals to unseat Lib-Dems by focussing on the Lib-Dems, on the issue of a new school and closing Clapham swimming pool.

Actually teh campaigns were not grassroots at all, the Local Education Action Plan being a slick front, a stalking horse put up to …

Sky News has the story:

Detectives investigating the cash-for-honours affair have reportedly uncovered a “hidden” computer network at Number 10. ITV News claimed the system had been used to send crucial emails – which now appear to have been deleted.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail has more this morning.

Another day, another angle to the story of why Labour axed the Saudi arms deal corruption investigation (tough on crime? only when it suits, seems to be the line). And David Cameron’s Conservatives? Silent again. Embarrassed by their own involvement in the deal I guess…

“LIBDEMS CAN WIN IN INNER-CITY AREAS” say Operation Black Vote, who are taking part in a series of initiatives to improve the party’s level of representation from ethnic minority communities. More details are in a report in The Voice.

A quick round-up of some of the coverage for the We Can Cut Crime campaign launch:

BBC
The Guardian
The Independent
Politics.co.uk
East Anglian Daily Time
Yorkshire Post

There was a bit of a fuzz in cyberspace (e.g. see here) when the local paper in Halifax ran a story claiming the Lib Dems were wooing the BNP. Well, the newspaper in question has now (finally!) printed a correction admitting its story was nonsense. For a slightly wordier verson of its correction, see their website.

At 11.45am today Ming Campbell (a former prosecutor himself) and Nick Clegg are launching the party’s spring “We Can Cut Crime” campaign. The website is already live at http://www.wecancutcrime.com/, where you can read the “5 steps to a safer Britain” programme and sign the petition.

During the hard-fought by-election in Hartlepool in 2004, Labour accused the Lib Dems of variously lying, scaremongering and eating babies for basing our campaign on saving Hartlepool hospital. Labour, who just held on to what had been a rock-solid safe seat, claimed the hospital was safe, with both Tony Blair and John Reed (then Health Secretary) personally promising it was safe.

I think you can guess what the story you can read from the local newspaper by following this link is about … (hint: promises, broken, hospital, closure).

“The Average Mobile Phone Contains More Bacteria Than A Toilet Seat”

This time, it’s Lord Dartmouth who has joined UKIP, their fourth recruit  in recent days (two other ex-Tory peers and one Tory economist being the rest).

All this follows hot on the heels of David Cameron’s party losing two councillors to the independents, costing them control of one more council, and a former councillor to the Lib Dems. Oh, and don’t forget the five other councils they’ve lost in recent weeks.

The BBC has the story from Bradford.

Another day, another crime story.

Major international crime-fighting body attacks the Labour Government.

Security Service refuses to back Government’s defence.

And David Cameron? Silent once again, whilst it is Ming Campbell who is on the case.

Kevin Maguire has the gory details of Labour’s infighting in Rochdale over selecting a candidate to challenge Paul Rowen at the next election.

Hat tip: Liberal England

John Yaxley, elected as a Conservative councillor in Caradon District Council in 2003, has (after a period as an independent) now joined the Liberal Democrats: “I believe that they now clearly offer the only credible voice for the people of South East Cornwall.”

As if losing four councils in a month before Christmas wasn’t enough, now the Conservatives have lost their majoirty on Erewash Council too.

News comes from the US that Wal-Mart is considering switching to using solar power in five US states – which would make the project the biggest individual solar power project ever.

For all the downsides with Wal-Mart’s behaviour, it’s huge size means that if it does something even half-decent, the positive impact can completely swamp the valiant efforts of many more organisations over a much longer period of time.