Liberal Burblings

Archive for May, 2006

Part of “Songs of Praise” this evening featured a clip of David Cameron at a conference on climate change. He was asked what the Conservative party’s goals for reduction of carbon emissions are. He said they haven’t got any yet because they have to work them out (even though it is 14 years since the Rio conference – so they’ve had long enough). Then, extraordinarily, he launched into a diatribe against the Americans for not having goals – when he had just admitted he doesn’t have any goals either! If he goes on spouting inane claptrap like that, Cameron will deserve Delboy’s accolade of “42 carot plonker”

“Film director Michael Winner has said he turned down an OBE in the Queen’s 80th birthday honours’ list. He told the Sunday Times newspaper, for which he is a columnist: “An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King’s Cross station.” “

“Villagers have been left baffled by the discovery of a bugging device hidden in their parish hall. The electronic transmitter was found in a wall socket during a safety inspection at Malham village hall in the Yorkshire Dales. Speculation is rife in the village that someone has been listening in to parish council proceedings.”
An insomniac perhaps?

“Film director Michael Winner has said he turned down an OBE in the Queen’s 80th birthday honours’ list. He told the Sunday Times newspaper, for which he is a columnist: “An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King’s Cross station.” “

Although he doesn’t know it, I have recently appointed John Leech as patron of the new Liberal Democrat Association of Tradesmen’s Bell pressers. After his (to us) surprise election as MP for Manchester Withington last year, his wife was quoted as saying how, for many months, he got up at 7am to deliver leaflets. I thought: “Ah! A fellow tradesmen’s bell presser!”. It was very heartening to know that a fellow LibDem had got elected largely due to playing the game with tradesmen’s bells (well I hope that was what he was doing, otherwise this whole posting is farcical). That is, get up at 6.30am and start pressing the tradesmen’s bells at around 7am to get into blocks of flats. Otherwise you can never get into the flats to deliver leaflets unless you buzz someone in each section, which they don’t really like.

There are obviously a lot of flats in Manchester Withington. You wouldn’t expect the same here in leafy West Berkshire but I can tell you different. My ward of Victoria is effectively the centre of Newbury. In the last ten years there has been a major outbreak of flats here, and I have grown to love the “John Leech shuffle” at 7am. I did one this morning for 15 blocks of flats…that’s 15 individual tradesmen’s bells…..this is getting a bit anorakky.

Anyway, well done John Leech MP. Even though you might not know it, you are an inspiration to many Liberal Democrat Tradesmen’s Bell pressers!

I am always very cautious about jumping to conclusions on “Bishop says” or “Bishop attacks” stories. Having read part of David Jenkins’ (former Bishop of Durham – yes, that one) autobiography, I am aware that he is a very thoughtful and dedicated Christian, a mile away from the caricature of the “mad bishop” presented in the tabloids.

The latest “Bishop says” story is summarised thus by the BBC:

In itself, that seems a fair comment (consecration of sites is important to all faiths – if that term can be used for all faiths). In fact, a quite specific point about concecrated sites which sadly will be generalised to mean “Bishop attacks multi-faith society”, which he is not doing.

I think that we can learn a lot from other religions. Recently on holiday I was touched by the devotion of the muslims (as well as the Coptic Christians) and their devoted praying.

Once again I am left thinking that if all those people who write “C of E” against “religion” on the census form actually occasionally went to church and said the odd prayer or at least opened the Bible once every Blue moon, we would have a much stronger Christian community in this country. Daily Mail scare-stories about the “encroachment” of other faiths are somewhat beside the point.