How many scientific reports do we need before we can have the "science based" policy that Nick Clegg says we should have ?
Back on the 31st of July the Commons Science Select Committee released their recomended rating system as part of their report on drugs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/31_07_06_drugsreport.pdf).
Anything from our front bench..? No - Just Nick Clegg giving us more "we need more science" hot air and dithering.
Back in March Sir Menzie Campbell claimed that the report was "a wake-up call. Our current policies are clearly not working. We need a non-partisan debate about the way forward." that was when they were discussing the initial findings
So has the front bench woken up ?
It's been, what 4 or 5 years since the last drafting of party policy on drugs, how many reports from scientists, doctors and MPs have we had in that time ? 6, 7, 8 ?
So where is this debate ? None of the front bench are prepared to stick their neck out, even our "radical" new leader is solumnly silent or tries to avoid the subject - Jock barely getting a sentance from him on the subject in the blogger interview with him, and that was just hot air.
Both Nick Clegg and Menzies Campbell have had ample opportunities to make an issue of this and really show the failings of Tory and Labour party policies, but have failed - when Brian Paddick spoke out on the subject, Nick Clegg was quick to call his sensible and well researched suggestions "too radical" - which is crazy and backward, it was exactly what Nick and the shadow justice minister / home secretary should have been pushing.
It's crazy that a supposedly Liberal party is taking an attitude of "see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, do nothing" on what is probably the largest social problem in the western world of the late 20th and early 21st century.
I know there are some illiberal lib dems who oppose sensible drug legalisation, but we are a liberal party and proclaim to base policies on common sense, freedom, justice and in this case "science", so WTF is going on ?
..especially in hilly cornish towns (and city) like Falmouth and Truro
Trondheim in Norway has the Trampe, imagine how much of a difference they could make to cycling in devon and cornwall : especially Truro, Plymouth and Exeter!
.. I present the real and parody version of Luke Akehurst's blog - including such highlights as "Gandhi, Magna carta blah blah blah", patronising Rachel North (yes, That "Rachel of north london" Rachel).
I think it shows exactly the kind of brainwashed zealotry that you don't want from any party activist, let alone a councillor.
I'm surprised that nobody from his local party has told him to STFU.
A.
Good lord, sometimes I think the microsofties who do the website for cornwall council really are a complete and total bunch of muppets.
The online job application has never worked in anything apart from MS Inept Exploder, because some complete tool decided that Javascript was Too Hard, and used vbscript for client side form validation - who the heck uses vbscript on web pages ??!!? muppet!
Now I noticed the cornwall.gov.uk appears in dynamoo's list of SQL Injected public sector websites that have been (until recently "fixed") spreading malware to anybody using them!
A quick google search shows that yes, at least part of the CCC website was hacked via SQL Injection, something that any developer worth hiring should know to prevent.
And just think - when our councils are all centralised, this bunch of clueless muppets will be doing the IT for all the councils. The same bunch of muppets who completely bought into Microsoft and insist on wasting money on poorly skilled staff and yet more MS licenses rather than hiring competent IT management.
]]>Apparently the Home Secretary isn't being Tough On Drugs enough for Tom Brake (LD MP for Wallington), so he sent a letter questioning why it's legal for shops to sell hookah pipes (which apparently can only be used for drugs like opium or skunk, and would be impossible to use, say cherry flavour or turkish tobacco in)..... because we need MORE LAWS CRIMINALISING SOFT DRUGS!!! WILL NOBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN???! .. sorry.
Cllr Jayne McCoy is organising a protest outside the shop and calling for parents ( WILL NOBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN???!... ahem) to come and make themselves heard. Because somebodies child could buy a hemp tote bag or sandals, or a joss stick stand or some oversizzed Rizzlas or THE HORROR a T-Shirt with a Cannabis Sattiva leaf on it, or worse SOME KIND OF SICK JUNKIE HUMOUR on it.
In response to Lynne Featherstone's piece at libdemvoice and the comments there.
From what I’ve seen of the comments
everybody responding is a lib dem. (I’ve voted lib dem, paid my membership,
contributed towards leadership campaigns, set up mailing lists, and
tried to kickstart technical stuff, membership no 82***91 FYI) I think it’s fair to say that there is nowhere internal to discuss these things. Conferences are once a year, expensive to get to, expensive to get
into, and policies are watered down before they are even discussed
there. The manifesto discussion website resulted in 0, Nil, Zilch impact on the manifesto, and is now not even working. In my (admittedly limited) experience local parties are frequently
only interested in either very local issues (speedbumps in feock
parish, somebody building 6 flats in perranwell), or the pure party
politics of council elections and squabbles. The mailing list servers are a great idea - but like many grassroots
good ideas the great and good are almost entirely absent - a few MPs
are on the local community party lists, but don’t expect any debate or
interest regarding actual policies onthem with anybody who has any say. The lib dem members website is next to useless - the only useful
working feature is the mailing lists, and websites - but those don’t
ammount to much if you’re only talking to yourself, or preaching to the
choir and ignored by relevent party officials. I can’t get budgets,
funding, upcoming manifesto ideas, policies, etc through it. I can’t
get much information from the public website either - try finding the
LD policy on drug liberalisation (no wonder Nick Clegg seems to
ignore/forget it) - it’s not linked from anywhere (not even the news
stories on drugs), its in the equivilent of Douglas Adam’s “locked
filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying
beware of the leopard”. *sigh* I feel that these blogs are the only way to shame party officials
into listening or responding, what’s more, as a Voter (and I really
wish more party campaigners and officials would think like a voter
rather than a politico), I want a transparent and accountable party,
the same as I want a transparent and accountable government. If we set
the standards within the party, people can expect us to set standards
in local and national government - a very positive thing. Anyway, despite it’s many faults, I still support the party (in my
voting, donations, time, opinion and blogging) - it’s the best party we
have in the UK, and we have better parties here than in the US and much
of europe - it’s just that like Oliver - I want more.
I just logged into my libdems account to see if there was any useful members information, like who to contact if you have questions about something (nope), or published information for party members (like local or national party budget, spending, accounts, etc - also nope).
It ammounts to the lists server - which very few members know of, and even fewer use, and flocktogether.
How incredibly 21st century, not.
You know what would be quite cool - if libdemsonline was given a trivial budget with which to sort this kind of stuff out, heck I have plenty of expertise in this area and would be more than happy to help, but currently unless you want to deliver leaflets or cold-call innocent bystanders in a by-election the other side of the country, any volunteering or involvement in the party is pay to play.
*sigh*
Good god people!
Think outside the box - do you really think the nation will notice if the lib dems blow an extra few hundred thousand splurging out on billboards, leaflets, focus groups and all that tosh.
Seriously - only a few decades ago parties got parlimentary majorities with a campaigning budget that is dwarved even by modern parties combined under the "others" label like UKIP or BNP, let alone the Liberal Democrats - maybe it's time to look at alternatives to throwing cash at council elections and by-elections.
Political advertising is probably the least effective advertising around, the public filter it out, ignore or avoid it, the only way to get the publics attention is to make the headlines yourself - that means taking control of the agenda, not following the other parties like sheep and listening less to the increasingly irrelevent westminster echo chamber.
How about, some really good initiatives ?
How about some radical policies that will make the public and media sit up and take notice.
How about using the resources we have to be smarter ?
How about making Party Political Reform hit the headlines by setting our own standards above and beyond the legal requirements of the house of commons, lords or EP.
Martin Bell got elected by being above-board, rather than being "Just Another MP", the only way a third party will ever make a serious dent in our parliamentary duopoly is to stand out as different, not acting like, talking like, and behaving like the other parties.
The Chinese government are little better than the Burmese Junta or Mugabe and his militia, yet Brown is snubbing the Dalai Lama by not having him as a guest at Downing Street - apparently it's ok for dictators or footballers, but not anyone the chinese communist party don't approve of.
Spineless ? Totally!
Same new labour, same "ethical foreign policy".
Nice, howies t-shirt of the week : subprime minister
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