Former party leader Ming Campbell is apparently furious with fellow Scottish Lib Dem, Danny Alexander, according to the Telegraph.
The two MPs are, it appears, at each others’ metaphorical throats over the handing over to the British army of RAF Leuchars in Fife (Ming’s patch), while RAF Lossiemouth in Moray (Danny’s neighbouring patch) — though it should be noted that RAF Kinloss, also close to Danny’s own consituency, will suffer the same fate as Leuchars.
The Telegraph quotes Ming implying with scarcely veiled fury that Danny’s intervention in the defence review to save Loissiemouth was politically convenient:
“It’s a remarkable coincidence that these decisions should have been thought to assist the political credibility of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, or is it? The result of the closure of Leuchars is that the RAF has been banished to the north of Scotland. The Army’s preferences have been met at the expense of a proper strategic analysis.”
The liberal think-tank Centre Forum has a new publication focusing on early years and social mobility, ‘Parenting matters’.
It commends the Coalition for recognising, most notably through the Lib Dem-inspired ‘pupil premium’, that support in the earliest years of a child’s life make the biggest differences to their later life chances. The report argues that the most important factor influencing a child’s development is the quality of parenting they receive, and that this willingness to engage directly with what is happening in the family sphere is essential to prevent the (deeply illiberal) squandering of individual potential.
You can read the report in full here. It recommends a ‘five-a-day’ plan for child development, including for example playing with your child on the floor for 10 minutes every day. It was cited by the Economist this week:
The point of the CentreForum study is … profound. The five proposals emerge from a report into social mobility and what a child experiences during the early years. It tries to factor out all the things people parents may convince themselves make a difference, and try to work out which ones actually affect a child’s development and which are just a fad. That doesn’t mean it is right. But that is why the advice is less prescriptive and more general than much other parenting guidance—and why on one level it seems very obvious.
Lib Dem MP Don Foster has urged the government to take more seriously the problems posed by urban gulls, says the BBC:
The Bath MP said there were well over 1,000 pairs of breeding gulls in the city and strategies to control the numbers were not working. “The truth is that so far I have failed to persuade the government to take the issue seriously,” he said. “It is a really serious problem for many people in my constituency of Bath and many other places around the country.
“What I’ve argued quite simply is that we don’t have enough research to understand the life cycle of the urban gull so that we can then decide what is the most appropriate action to solve the problem. In front of me I have a series of photographs of gulls sitting by decoy birds, sitting in among spikes, sitting right next to loudspeaker systems that are meant to give distress calls that send seagulls away. All of the methods that are being used largely do not work, they’re costing an absolute fortune and that’s because we’re not doing some basic research to find out how to solve the problem.”
The MP said he had seen pictures of some gulls sitting next to decoy birds “There are all sorts of bird-lovers out there who will think I’m doing horrible things but as far as I’m concerned, these are just rodents with wings.”
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8 Comments
Why do you mix these 3 items?
The issue with seagulls is one for the biologists to sort out. Why would anyone on LDV be interested in that?
The issue with parenting is really very important and deserves a proper debate. I am pleased that Centre Forum are attending to this.
The issue with defence spending seems rather parochial. However it is absurd that for all the cuts the defence minister Liam Fox still likes to boast that the UK is the forth largest spender on the military in the world. Surely at a time when the government is cutting benefits for the poorest people in the country we have got our priorities seriously wrong if that is the case? I appreciate Ming has constituency responsibilities to attend to, but I would rather he argue with Danny Alexander on more important issues.
Geoffrey Payne, Ming’s was one of the few Lib Dem safe seats in Scotland, no longer. The closure of Leuchars threatens to rip the heart out of a struggling local economy and will hand that part of the world, once a Lib Dem stronghold, to the SNP or Labour. The Lib Dems are going the way of the Tories and will be unelectable in Scotland, and that will mean the end of the party. You’ll no longer be a national party, but an English party without the numbers to be anything but an irrelevance in Westminster.
Misleading headline, Stephen. I clicked on this in the hope of seeing Don Foster’s insightful comments about our coalition partners…
*badum tish*
The way to deal with the gulls is to find their nests and dislodge them during the breeding season, smashing the eggs and dislodging the young. Then they will go extinct.
Persecuting the adult birds is a waste of time.
PS, as a wild bird species gulls are protected and you will be prosecuted should you damage their nests, eggs, or kill them.
Gulls incidentally are declining in numbers in the UK and are in need of protection.
Agree with both Geoffrey and g… Also Ming is correct that on his assessment of Leuchers vs. Lossiemouth.
Regarding the problem of gulls in Bath and other places, it is still possible to apply for a licence from Natural England to enable measures to be taken to deal with the problem – but there is no general licence – see:
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/gull-licensing_tcm6-18281.pdf
It seems certain species of gulls are under threat.
A comment on each.
Perhaps, Ming is merely representing his constituents’ interests – part of his job. How the three bases mentioned would fit future defence plans is a more technical question…
The real problem with successful education is that while people know when it worked after the fact, there isn’t really a sure fire recipe for it. People have different recipes, some of which are advanced with fundamentalist zeal. Anything that points the people at the coalface in right directions without micro-managing them would be a good thing.
We know more now about fluctuations in numbers of birds and animals, and it is the subject of ongoing research.
Some adaptable species, such as pigeons, foxes and herring gulls have discovered that man is providing them with new and promising habitats – we can hardly blame them for exploiting them, especially if we’ve helped destroy their ‘natural’ habitats. Nice Nash terraces with wide stone ledges close to discarded fast food (of even fast food vulnerable to swoops from the air) and rubbish dumps sounds like herring gull heaven. Scientists can advise or research on these species that are becoming pests (calling them rats or rodents is just wrong), but, with the best advice implementing any action will involve local and national politicians. (Just think of bovine TB, where there are approaches, each with recognised advantages and drawbacks. Which to choose and where is a political matter.)