The rest of The Voice’s Daily View team may have decided to have a lie in each morning during August, but we’re made of sterner stuff here on the Sunday slot (for the moment). And as it’s a Sunday, it’s also time for another bonus musical extra.
Big Stories
UK death toll in Afghanistan reaches 200
A British soldier has died from wounds suffered in Afghanistan, taking the number of UK troops killed since operations began in 2001 to 200.
The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh, died in hospital in Birmingham. Family have been informed. (BBC)
Britain imposes direct rule of Turks and Caicos isles
Britain says it has suspended the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands and imposed direct rule after allegations of systemic corruption and “serious dishonesty”.
British Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant said he instructed the British governor of the island territory to suspend the ministerial government and the House of Assembly for as long as two years. (CNN)
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
- Nader Fekri marks Indian independence with an extract from Nehru’s speech. I find the speech both uplifting – it’s a fantastic piece of rhetoric – and also depressing – for the fine words jar so badly with the bloodshed running up to independence.
- There have been at time quite acerbic exchanges in the last few days about the NHS on Lib Dem blogs. Charlotte Gore’s latest post, The Common Ground?, sets out some of the substantive policy issues.
(Both of these posts have been selected from those which appeared on Lib Dem Blogs on Saturday. To read more from other Liberal Democrat blogs, take a look at the Lib Dem Blogs website and to see what Lib Dems have been saying on Twitter, take a look at Liberal Tweets.)
Sunday Bonus
As is now very nearly traditional, here’s another song about computing. Get your keyboard and coffee cup ready to play along:
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11 Comments
In other news: confirmed death toll is 200 UK soldiers, 10,000 Afghani civilians (including children). One’s a newsworthy tragedy, the other’s just a statistic…
I thought this was a “Top Story” from the Observer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/16/lib-dems-face-fraud-funding-inquiry
Mark – it wasn’t even a top story in the Observer. An investigation doesn’t even imply evidence of guilt, never mind proof or conviction.
I don’t know. Page 7 on any national paper is pretty good going for the Lib Dems.
An investigation doesn’t imply anything, but the fact that the EC have decided to further their investigations years later implies that they think it is still an open item. Also the fact that there is a new chief executive implies that the predecessor can be blamed for any perception that the matter has been kicked into the long grass for the last 4 years.
On the infamous donation, does anyone know the likely timescale for the EC investigation ? Perhaps the party need to start building an emergency fund to be kept untouched till this is finally resolved.
I think the fund is called the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.
Plumbus: Given that the “investigation” has already dragged on for 4 years, this particular sword could be hanging over our heads for many more months to come.
It does sound as though they are doing more than just going through the motions:
“Officials from the Electoral Commission have taken the unprecedented step of obtaining computer records, emails and witness statements from the City of London police that helped to convict Michael Brown of a £10m theft. It is believed to be the first time that the commission has obtained evidence from the police since its formation nine years ago. “
Here’s a rather fuller version of the report:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/16/fraudster-liberal-democrats
Quite frankly I’m sick and tired of hearing about this bollocks. Even more so in that I consider that the money was wasted on turgid inserts in local papers, etc. Can somebody just tell me where and when to send my £40?
Meanwhile, in the real world, my concerns like Andrew’s are more about the 10,000 butchered civilians in Afghanistan, the 3.5 million who will be unemployed by this time next year. The tens of thousands losing their homes. The prospect of a Tory Government pissing around once again with the the NHS, local government and education without any respite to recover from the same actions by new Labour. £40? Is that an issue? The issue is surely the £10000 debt that ‘new’ Labour have saddled me and each of my children and all of you with since the last election! Lets get real shall we.
‘The commission’s inquiry is believed to be focusing on whether the Lib Dems should have been aware that 5th Avenue Partners was not trading. According to electoral law, only companies ‘
It gets better,a huge donation is taken from a company and nobody bothers to check that the comapny’s even trading.That give a whole new meaning to due diligence.