rosie-winterton

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

I took this rather nice picture of the Rosie Winterton MP, Minster of State for Health Services, the other week. It’s now in the public domain with an attribution, non-commercial licence, so if you want to use it, don’t charge for it and give me a credit. Large version on Flickr.

Monday was Full Council, which turned into quite a hostile debate on a number of issues. The mood in the Chamber was bad, so I didn’t get to do my pun about the Appointment and Conditions of Service Ctte report about from tiny ACOS, mighty oak trees grow.

There was also a report about the Gambling Act, and how it will affect Nottingham, with reference to the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services, so we also nearly had mighty oak trees growing from tiny LACORS, too.

But given how my attempt at levity in the incinerator debate went down – my few words on the irony of standing in a roasting chamber filled with hot air and heated debate whilst talking about an incinerator met with stony silence – it’s probably just as well I didn’t get to my feet any earlier.

Did you see this press release from Don Foster?

The Lib Dems have been doing techy stuff all day.

I’m not normally competitve, but an email came in tonight that set me against the clock and racing against other activists.

Earlier in the day, an email came to a Lib Dem computer list saying that there was a new video clip on our website of Ming talking about the environment. It was using Google Video, a technology hitherto unfeatured on www.libdems.org.uk

This spurred a colleague to feature the same video on www.bromleylibdems.org.uk

Which in turn spurred the company that provides these clever, self-updating websites to put out an information bulletin about the facility and issue a challenge: the first site to put on a video clip they had made themselves gets a month free hosting.

Received that email at 7.20pm.

Clip on www.nottinghamlibdems.org.uk by 8.05pm.

Getting it done entailed recording it on my phone, emailing it to myself, converting from phone format to a format that Google Video can read. (This program worked, the first two I tried didn’t.) Uploading to GV, then putting the code on the website. Somehow, the clip has got turned upsidedown. It was fine when it left my computer.

Someone found me whilst googling “Vegetarian members of the UK Conservative Party”

I’m intrigued now.  I don’t know of any.  I do know lots of veggie Lib Dems, but not sure if I can think off the top of my head whether any of them are in the public eye.

I’m one of those people who thought, the minute they heard about the Bromley by-election, that it was worth firing up a browser, logging into Betfair and punting a wodge of Dunfermline profits on the result. It was long odds at the time, what with the Lib Dems being in third place and the Tories looking way ahead.

Just recently, newly blogging Lib Dem peer Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, weighed in to show up how similar the situation is now in Bromley and Chislehurst to the very nearby seat of Orpington, which was won by the Liberals in a by-election in 1962. Wikipedia says this was the start of a great Liberal Revival, that Eric Lubbock went on to hold the seat for eight years, and within months, the Liberals became the most popular party in the country.

Winning is no longer looking completely impossible now. People on the doorstop are responding positively, I hear from impartial sources (and of course from HQ who send me daily slips as a previous by-election attendee to remind me that it’s a two-horse race, every effort needed, send cash if you can’t come yourself). Apparently no-one mentions Cameron when you knock on doors, but they do seem to agree with the outrage in our leaflets about “Three Jobs Bob” the Conservative candidate. Poor Dave also got villified in the local press when he visited.

And now, in an amusing twist, it seems that one of those jobs might actually be a bar to the Conservative taking office, and moreover mean his declaration form was fraudulent. RecessMonkey is reporting that, as a member of a Strategic Health Authority, the Tory candidate is barred from standing for election under a 1975 act. Even attempting to stand means he’s filled in a fraudulent declaration.

Time will tell. So far, it’s only Recess, and people reading Recess running with this. The truth will out.

I haven’t been able to go this time, and come polling day, I will be away, abroad. I’ll just have to hope some kind soul texts me the result.

I still haven’t booked my hotel for Lib Dem conference in Brighton this year.

Every time I fire up Google to try and find a suitable location, I get overwhelmed with a vast sense of desparation and put it off until some other time.

They all seem much more expensive than the first time I went to conference down there, when I stayed in a lovely little place with homemade jam for breakfast, and room with four beds in and just little old me.  I have no recollection at all how far from the conference centre it was.
What I can remember is staggering home drunk every night and making a flavoursome concoction by mixing coffee and hot chocolate sachets from the stand with the kettle.

I also spotted, that time, that there were lots and lots of hotels in the vicinity with signs saying “Rooms available – rates starting at £50” — so I resolved the following time not to book accommodation in advance but trundle along the seafront with my wheelie suitcase and find something suitable on arrival.

Big mistake, as when I tried to do that, even the places with signs in the window saying £50 were telling me that in conference week, their basic rate was more like £150.

In the end, I did find a seafront hotel with budget rates, but it was a complete fleapit with a desperately uncomfortable beds, and paper thin walls.  Two nights in a row a man and a woman had a very loud, very unpleasant argument, and I didn’t get a wink of sleep.

That particular stay ended very well, though, because my then boss had paid for a room in the Hilton conference hotel but was unable to use it for the whole week.  I was able to move into the vacated room for the last few days.  It was rather superb.  A vast suite with a sea front and a balcony and more floor space than my house. I suspect all my neighbours would have been MPs and MEPs.

This time, there’s no way I can afford to stay at the conference hotel since it’s charging significantly over £100 a night.  So I’m looking for a nice little hotel that preferably has free wifi and a kettle in the room (I don’t mind — in fact I probably prefer — taking my own tea and coffee) and a bed I can actually sleep on, not a million miles from the conference centre and not megabucks during conference week.  And not fully booked already!

I’m on two scrutiny committees on the Council this year, Regneration, Infrastructure and Sustainability and Serving the Adult Community.

Anyone who reads B3ta will know that RIS is funny.  It’s b3tan slang for people who just don’t get it. A guy posted a picture of his local Morrisons supermarket which had had a lightbulb failure so that its sign read MOR   ONS. The guy who didn’t get it posted “RIS?”

I’ve a feeling the good people of b3ta would find SAC funny too.

Pick up phone.

Brr-brr.

“Hello, do you have any bullet-proof vests?”

Blimey, says J — where are you going canvassing?

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Iain leaves an arch comment on the car posting, even if it’s nothing like as arch as one I left him a few months ago.

Actually, the Lib Dems have done rather well in the elections yesterday in the East Mids.

Only six of the forty-four councils were up for election, anyway, and we made gains on four of them.

Derby City we gained three, including some new territory and regaining some marginal territory we lost by eleven votes last time. Council is NOC gain from LAB and I have yet to hear the outcome of coalition talks.

West Lindsey we gained two, leading to a NOC gain from CON. A further by-election is pending.

In Lincoln and Daventry we gained one councillor on each, doubling our numbers on both. Slow steady gains, building on bulkheads. Difficult and lonely work for the councillors who get elected in those circs. In Daventry six Tory councillors were elected unopposed, a practice that is all but dying out.

The two remaining councils are Bassetlaw, which turned blue, and Amber Valley, which stayed blue, and didn’t turn — what colour is BNP?