CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE
Bringing Balance through Support
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CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE Bringing Balance through Support |
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| CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE | <info@genderbalance.org.uk> | 18th March 2010 |
Don't know what blogging is? Check out the BBC's webwise website. Campaign for Gender Balance Blog AwardsThe Campaign for Gender Balance has announced the shortlists for its Blog Awards, to be announced at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference. The shortlists are as follows: 
Best Blog by a Woman Liberal DemocratThis shortlist will form the basis of two awards - the Judge's Choice and the Peoples' Choice. To vote in the People's Choice category, follow this link: http://cgbblog.notlong.com/ 
Best Blog Post by a Woman Liberal Democrat
Best Blog by a Woman Non-Liberal DemocratWe are sad to report that Rose Hacker died on 4 February, one month before her 102nd birthday. Her remaining columns are continuing to be published by the Camden New Journal. Congratulations to everyone who has been shortlisted and commiserations to everyone who was not. The final results will be announced at the Campaign for Gender Balance Blog Awards' Drinks Reception, taking place on Saturday 8th March 2008, between 8.00pm and 9.30pm, at Canada Suite, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Liverpool. The awards will be decided by a prestigious team of judges:
To read blogs by Liberal Democrats (women and men), see the Lib Dem Blogs website (http://www.libdemblogs.co.uk). Latest Lib Dem BlogsThu 18th Mar 2010: Two teenagers have died after taking MEPHEDRONE!!1! (oh and alcohol and methadone.) The toxicology results won't be back for weeks. Until then, we don't know how these young men came to their sad end. But the press have decided: they died because of mephedrone. What has alarmed me about today's moral panic is the prevalance of the attitude that 'legal' must mean 'safe'. I find this a terrifying attitude for individuals to take towards their own well-being. This is yet another conseqeunce of prohibition. When the government's remit becomes to protect people from themselves, some people - perhaps inadverently - ... In general I like trade unions. I like the idea that we should improve working conditions. I like the idea of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. A pivotal role for the unions is to ensure good communications between the workers and the management. In an ideal world we don't need unions. We would have perfect communication, fair wages and excellent working conditions without asking for them. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. If there is a dispute then the management will blame the unions for excessive demands. Unions will blame management for unjustified impositions. ... City of Durham: Oops, pressed wrong button! Seems that one MP has been pressing the wrong buttons Don't give up Carol – win through with a winning team. Wed 17th Mar 2010: Fresh Squeezings From the Veins of the InternetY'all know how Nestlé are evil, right? Now they are killing The Librarian. Unleash the Sender of Eight! Andrew Hickey tells us what could persuade him to vote for Labour or the Tories:here's something that could make me vote for either of them: If they'd just promise to *DO NOTHING* for five years. I would gladly vote for a government that I knew was - unlike every government of my lifetime - not going to actively make things worse. Even if things stayed just as bad as they are, just *NOT MAKING THEM ... Wednesday 17 March: Busiest day of the campaign. 8.30 Writing press releases 9.45 Picked up to go and talk to residents. 10.00 On the doorstep in Prittlewell. Some good conversations. 11.00 Visit to a local school - great to see the children doing so well. 11.20 Back on the doorstep. 11.50 Visit to a local charity doing fantastic work. Really good to meet the team and see the work they are doing. 12.10 to 12.30 On the doorstep 13.45 Attend a hustings meeting courtesy of the Southend Pensioner Campaign. A lot of familiar faces, and a good response to my speech. Some very sharp questioning...and a no show ... Thai government stance makes no sense. According to the Bangkok Post the government have now agreed to meet with the red shirts if Thaksin Shinawatra (who has been just been granted citizenship by Montenegro) agrees that it is ok. This seems slightly odd to say the least given the government's stance on Thaksin up until now. As far as they are ... It was another busy day today, starting with an assembly on Fairtrade for Egglescliffe CE primary school, followed by Planning committee (which lasted over 3 hours) and then just time to nip home and collect the things I needed for the meeting at All Saints.About 180 people almost filled All Saints Church to make suggestions on the next moves and to volunteer their services to organise. There Jeff's Crystal Ball Not all Wonky. No Jeff has been worried that his crystal ball has been a bit wonky of late. Well I thin that on this St Patrick's night this Irishman will be able to partly put his mind to rest. Almost 18 months ago, conveniently on my birthday so I could remember the date, he blogged: "Stephen Glenn is expected to stand in Linlithgow and Falkirk East for the Liberal Democrats. A very tough contest indeed for the genial Ulsterman."My response to him at the time was: "But I'm expected to stand then am I? You know the result of the selection process ... Change that works for you: Building a fairer Britain. What does it mean? Change that works for you. There have been grumblings over this choice of slogan - the Liberator has even printed on its front page 'change that offends no one - building a blander Britain'. But I ask you, when did you last meet a slogan you did like? The liberator demands clear gold water, but doesn't offer an alternative slogan. What could a party say to clearly and immediately distinguish itself from its rivals? Property is theft? Greed is good? There is no such thing as society? No taxation without representation? Deutschland uber Alles? Liberté, Egalité, ... Sonia - You'll Never Stop Me Loving You. Got bored of the telly tonight and reduced to 'Magic' on Sky - but good to hear this 1989 hit by Sonia! Happy days! 10pm and still a queue for the print machine. I came down to our constituency office in Whickham 10 minutes ago thinking it would be an ideal time to print my village focus. Photos done this morning. Desktop published this afternoon. Proofed this evening. When I get to the office however I find Durham North West here printing their Focus!Plenty of activity going on. What mad life I lead! Now I have to join the queue for the printing machine. Post Conference Lib Dem poll boost - what will be the electoral impact? I don't really do polls, but it seems that all the polling companies have been reporting a significant boost for the Liberal Democrats following the very successful and widely reported Spring Conference last weekend. These poll boosts have been around 3-4%. But the evidence from the YouGov daily poll tracker is that this has started to fall away as memory fades. So what might be the impact during a general election? Well the simple answer for me is that, because the Lib Dems get an roughly equal share of the TV coverage in a general election (unlike for the rest ... Planned tory cuts threaten oxfordshire. News that Oxfordshire's economy has experienced low economic growth in the past five years raises a serious question over Tory plans nationally to start cutting the budget deficit immediately if they are elected in May. The Oxfordshire Economic Assessment prepared for the County Council says that the county experienced low economic growth compared to the rest of the South East. The improvement which has occurred was due mainly to growth in public sector, which is now being hit by budget constraints. Public sector growth is likely to fall further in the future so government action nationally will be essential to ... Any Questions does it again: no Lib Dem this week. Yup, Any Questions has done it again with this week's panel featuring a Tory MP, a Labour MP, a right-wing pundit and a Green candidate – but no Liberal Democrat. Details of how to lodge your complaint with the BBC here. Well its now reached that time that almost every political campaigner enjoys, the preparation has been done, there is nothing more that can be done to persuade voters or issues to campaign about, and it's all down to how many people get out to vote tomorrow. I have to say I have really enjoyed the campaign. I've met a lot of people, got to know neighbours and people who live in my area so much better and feel that whatever the result, I have benefitted from the campaign in so many ways. More than anything else though, I am convinced ... Mephedrones will keep happening until we wake up to our drug policy failings. It was only a matter of time before mephedrone hit the headlines associated with the death of a healthy young teenager, and we sadly learned today of two teenage friends in Scunthorpe who have died after taking the drug. We also learned - but only if we read further into the various news articles - that the boys are thought to have been drinking, and also to have taken the class A drug methadone (commonly used as a heroin substitute in treating heroin dependency). While mephedrone may have been a contributory factor in their death, perhaps the sober piece of ... Tories pledge 'minister for Cornwall' - probably because they know they won't win seats here. I read today that the Conservatives are planning to have a Minister for Cornwall should they win the General Election. Two thoughts arise... First, that there is nothing in the article which definitely confirms whether the Conservatives will do this - or whether they are just blowing smoke at the voters of Cornwall in the hope that they will fall for a fairly blatant bit of patronising campaigning. I've written to Mr Cameron asking him to confirm this one way or another. Second, does this indicate that the Conservatives are actually a lot less sure about winning Cornish seats than ... UK Libertarian party blog post supports regulation. The UK Libertarian party likes to declare that it is different from the three mainstream parties and it particularly enjoys calling the Liberal Democrats the Social Democrats. The party's blog posts throw up some interesting ideas and are nothing if not consistent. Today though, Tim Carpenter has made the case for regulation. It is regulation as opposed to banning something but nevertheless it is regulation. Whatever next? Sport Relief - just £15,645 a year for Cornwall. Here's a statistic from this evening's event which shocked me. Just £15,645 of funding from Sport Relief comes to Cornwall each year. That's a tiny amount and I'm horrified that it's so little. Apparently the amount is calculated on the basis of population numbers and is, not surprisingly, massively over-subscribed. As well as their work in the UK, there are also lots of good projects around the world. I do not want to decry the work that Sport Relief does. What money they do spend here goes to very worthwhile projects that can make a huge difference to the lives ... Labour: third General Election candidate in over a year. Out of a blaze of publicity, a new website and a couple of quotes in the local paper, this time last year 'local boy' Tony Clements was announced as the Labour candidate to take on Eleanor Laing. But since then he has disappeared. Gone quiet.Until today, when I was reading this article on the local guardian website and I noticed not Tony Clements as Labour's choice, but a woman called Katie Obviously being married to an Anglo-Irish woman, I couldn't let today go past without a mention of St. Patrick's. However, you'll be pleased to know that I've not been going over the top with the wearing of the green and the shamrocks everywhere, but I did have a quiet glass of Guinness and a little Bushmills. Happy St. Pat's everyone. If the weekend conference gives 3% poll boost........... I know it is wrong to extrapolate from a single poll, but the boost in Lib Dem share in the most recent Political Betting sponsored poll by Angus Reid does make you wonder what the impact of a 6 week campaign with Leaders debates will have? The figures are; Con 39%, Lab 26% and Lib Dem 21%. Last week the figures were 39%, 26% & 18%. Cornwall Sports Partnership Funding Fair. This evening I've been at Truro College for the Funding Fair organised by the Cornwall Sports Partnership. It was a great event attended by over 200 people and with a range of potential funders and advisers on hand to give information to sports clubs and those associated. I went with my councillor hat on but also looking at what funding might be available to hardworking local clubs such as Launceston Boxing Club and Launceston Rugby Club. But I've picked up a huge range of ideas which I'll be passing on to clubs the length of Cornwall. Among the organisations giving ... Friends of Wighton : Tich Frier. With thanks to Sheena Wellington, here's the latest update from Friends of Wighton : On Saturday 20th March, the Friends of Wighton are presenting a Cappuccino Concert in Dundee, performed by the well-known entertainer Tich Frier, from Edinburgh. Held in the atmospheric Wighton Centre, upstairs in Dundee Central Library, the event starts at 10.30am with coffee and newspapers. The music will be start at 11 am and run for about an hour. Admission is £5. Tich has been singing folk songs for over 40 years, and has shared stages with some of the greats of folk music and taken his ... Election Day -50: Yes, just 50 days to go... 50 days to canvas, 50 days to build the database, 50 days to deliver leaflets, 50 days to write Focuses, 50 days of email boxes full of pledge requests, 50 days of trying to hold it together on the work front, 50 days of stress, 50 days of taking one's partner for granted, 50 days ... I recently mentioned that Stagecoach Strathtay was giving consideration to my request, on behalf of residents, to extend the 69 bus service to cover Richmond Terrace and Richmond Court (see above). This morning, I took part in a site visit with the bus company and a City Council officer to ascertain if the bus can safely turn to allow it to cover the area. Conclusion - no problem - it can. The next step is to see how the additional 4 minutes needed in the timetable can be achieved. Stagecoach Strathtay will investigate this and I will update residents when ... Election Day -51: Was spent working in France. Was taking stuff there and back so had to use the car – amazing the anomalies in border security now. On the way back through the tunnel just a casual wave of the passport, no security checks whatsoever. It's the same on the ferries – sometimes they'll check the car, but most vehicles get waved ... LibLink: Simon Hughes - Being a constituency MP. Over at The Guardian's Comment Is Free website, Simon Hughes – Lib Dem MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey since 1983 – writes about his experiences as a constituency member of Parliament, and how a good and effective democracy is under-pinned by approachable MPs who deliver top-quality personal responses. (Peter Black recently blogged a letter in the Guardian from someone whose train journey was disrupted by Simon's assiduous work ethic). Here's an excerpt: It is a seven-day, 80-hour a week job being a constituency MP. Every day by phone, letter, email or simply being stopped in the street, people ask ... Garden waste recycling starts again this Saturday. Spring appears to be creeping round the corner slowly, and people are getting back into their gardens following our freezing winter. The garden waste drop-off point at the junction between Riddons Road and Mayeswood Road in Grove Park is re-opening this Saturday. Between 9am and noon every Saturday between this Saturday (20th March) until 28th November, you can take along garden waste in plastic or reusable bags. Flowers and plants, grass clippings, hedge trimmings, leaves, and twigs and branches up to four inches in diameter will all be accepted. Alternative drop off points are available at Girton Road Car Park, ... Mark Reckons he has launched a new channel called Lib Dem TV. But with all due respect to Mark and to our new campaign song, the Liberal Democrat story of the day (and our photograph) comes from Bridget Fox. She remembers a loved cat who has just died: "Percy would sit on top of the big old TV, often draping one paw elegantly over the screen. He would play with the landline phone cable, change TV channels by wrestling with the remote, and would also regularly climb onto one of our laptops - sometimes with unintended consequences, like the time ... Triple-jacked over a steeplehammer and jessop jessop jessop jessop jessop. Before I start writing this, I just want to point everyone in the direction of the comments to my Joe The Barbarian post. There's some fantastic stuff there, and I'm just sorry I've not been online enough to engage in that discussion more. It's comment threads like that that make the ridiculous amount of time ... Travelling through Nidderdale with Brian. I spent this morning and lunchtime on the Little Red Bus with Brian, a warm, wonderful and helpful driver! Little Red Bus is a not-for-profit, independent, voluntary organisation tackling isolation faced by people living in rural—and urban—areas. It is a vital link in the provision of community transport throughout the Skipton & Ripon constituency. The crisis regarding the lack of adequate public transport in rural areas is well known, and I won't bang the drum about its importance here. Suffice to say that it has to be central to any local council's integrated transport planning, as it provides a lifeline ... Supermarket Shakespeare returns again... Supermarket Shakespeare is coming back to Lee Green Sainsbury's for the third year. Previous performances have attracted rave reviews. This year's performances at Lee Green are at the following times: Tuesday 20th April 7pm Wednesday 21st April 7pm Thursday 22nd April 7pm Friday 23rd April 7pm Saturday 24th 12pm & 6pm Sunday 25th 12pm & 3pm There are also performances at Forest Hill, New Cross and Lewisham Sainsbury's – details on the Teatro Vivo website. You can also watch a trailer here. Lovely pm there with the people whale meat again dont know where dont know when well i do actually it'll be Friday Other Reckonings - 17th March 2010. Stumbling and Mumbling reports on "Mephedrone and the Frankenstein Syndrome".Political Betting highlights a polling fillip for the Lib Dems.Lib Dem Voice on the 24 Lib Dem MPs who are 100% liberal.The Spectator's Peter Hoskin on Dick, I beg your pardon Nick Griffin's expense claims since becoming an MEP. Wednesday bonus: The 7 Karma Sutra Sex Tips that will land you in hospital courtesy of Cracked.com If you're a Londoner and are concerned about the possible closure of the A&E department at the Whittington Hospital, you will be pleased to hear that Lynne Featherstone secured a 90 minute debate about this in the House today. Click here to read her blog and comments. It is essential now that the campaign to secure the future of the A&E department does not loose interest or support! We are running an anonymous survey in order to find out how you came to be here today. On the right of the page (scroll down a little bit) you will see a survey box – take 2 seconds and click on the appropriate button (and before you ask, there is NO identifying data being collected) – this is just a little bit of fun and provides me with some additional information. Thanks everyone! Chris Tories offer same sex couples the same parenting leave. Noted in today's issue of the Telegraph online, was the following article 'The role of the father has been downgraded' in which they explore the role of the father in today's family. It was interesting to note that the Tories where quoted as saying '...the Conservative leader has promised that civil partners will benefit from extended paternity and maternity leave (in the case of adoption or artificial insemination babies). David Cameron has also promised that proposals to extend flexible working and married couples' tax breaks would be granted as well. He has stated that the party is no longer hostile ... "Tory candidate uses 'doctored' photo". From The Times: A Conservative parliamentary candidate for one of the safest seats in the country has used a doctored campaign photograph that appears to have removed wrinkles and patched up her smile. The assistant of Caroline Dinenage, the Conservative candidate for Gosport, took her photograph to a digital laboratory to turn the snap into a billboard election poster. Speaking to The Times today, the 38-year-old candidate insisted that she had not intended for her photograph to be airbrushed. She said: "The photograph was taken by a friend in my front garden and was not of a good enough quality. ... NEW POLL: Should members of the Lords get to vote in general elections? Some members of the House of Lords have been demanding the right to vote for MPs and want to see the law changed to remove the ban on peers voting at general elections. Do you agree with them? That's the question asked in our latest Twitter poll: This is what Nick Clegg said in his closing speech at the Spring Conference today. He opened his speech by telling delegates (and the electorate) by telling the conference what bothered him about political attitudes and opinions, that the phrase "That's just the way things are" is not the way things have to be (link to LibDem YouTube upload of speech at the end of this posting, Chris) He went onto the subject that in my opinion is the biggest vote winner – taxation. Is it fair that we '...live in a country where the poorest pay the biggest chunk ... Dear All After a malicious denial of service attack and a server hack, we are back online in a 'fresh and new' format. Sadly, all previous postings (pre 13.03.10) have gone, but this has given me the chance to tidy up a cluttered blog hierarchy and start afresh. Chris Should the LibDems form a coallition government with the Tories? Vote here – this is by no means a scientific poll, but so far. the results have indicated that 46% of respondents have said NO to the question. As a centre-leftist, I cannot see that a coallition is a good idea as it will discourage the wavering Tory voters from coming across to the LibDems (Clegg/Cameron = Tory?) and the Labour voters who have just had enough – well they cannot be encouraged to vote for a party which is going to be in bed with the Tories... A loose loose situation in my mind. But then again, I am ... As friends already know, my much-loved cat Percy was taken ill late on Monday night and died early on Tuesday morning. He had been very ill in December, and had a heart condition diagnosed then. His lifestyle changed, from being free range to being a house cat, on daily medication, ever since; and our excellent ... This will not be one of my more finely tuned highly researched post's as I am bloging on the way home and is based on little more than hearsay and may or not reflect the wasteful attemps of Labour to fight, claw, bribe, etc its way to a fresh term.As with many initiatives there are different viewpoints and this one comes from an astonished co-worker. Many will have seen the Governments offer of free laptops for families on benefits with school aged children to help with their education, perhaps not as familiar are parents who are having a bit of ... Hanging out with mates more popular than looking things up in the library. Facebook has apparently just overtaken Google as the most popular website in the US. The world returns to normal. When my wife was (recently) pregnant she was very aware of how rarely people offered her their seat on the Tube - even in the somewhat obvious final stages. Those who did tended to be women aged 25 and over. We always assumed that this was largely because they could imagine being or had been in the same situation themselves. And men always had the slight excuse that some women might take it as a comment on their weight. Cobblers. I am now hobbling around on a crutch with a ripped calf muscle (tedious). I am clearly not going to ... Whittington debate today in Parliament. I secured a 90 minute in Parliament today on the Future of London Hospitals - obviously about the Whittington A&E, maternity and paediatrics. I wanted to use this opportunity to really put the case to the Minister that the sweeping changes being proposed have no clinical evidence base and no business case. I demonstrated (for about half an hour) how there is no evidence of where or how 45,000 A&E patients who could not be handled by an alternative means would be cared for, nor any existing services in the community to deal with the 38,000 shoved from the A&E ... Bishop of London's pre-election pastoral letter. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, has issued this pastoral letter to the Anglican churches in his diocese, about the elections. "Although its date has yet to be announced, it is certain that there will be a General Election by early June, and the political parties are clearly now well embarked on a pre-election campaign. We ... Oh sterling doommongers, where are ye? Remember those hazy days at the beginning of March? It was obvious, innit: a hung parliament spells doom to the pound. Since then, the possibility of a hung parliament has remained just as strong (see Betfair) and yet the Pound is up. From the $1.50 level to $1.54. Nothing spectacular: just enough to confirm my hunch ... Political dorks heaven #536: C-Span's entire video archive online - FREE. US cable network C-Span, bless them, have just put their entire unedited video archive online for FREE access. The videos go back 23 years. Bear in mind that C-Span don't do things by half – they cover entire events, so we're not talking 2 minute clips here – they show you, for example, the entire speech with speaker entering, applause and waves at the end. There's a list of links to memorable moments here. I've picked out a classic Ted Kennedy speech from 1980 here. It's the full 30 minutes in high quality video from the Democratic convention of that ... Earlier Stories Complete archive on the official site.
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