Barry Cryer

A fabulous show!

Barry is a true giant of the comedy world a man with such a long and distinguished pedigree having written for so many greats that it was sheer joy to sit and listen to him, to top it all he even read out one of my questions.

My favourite bit? "Colin Sell said to me nothing rhymes with orange! [Pause] No it doesn't".

The man is a National Treasure.

And death shall have no dominion

Today my white poppy arrived, and I shall be wearing it to remember all victims of war, and to promote pacifism in general.

The quote is from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas whose birthday it is today.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one...
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

The words above are the epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis, who died on this day in 1967. His most famous books are Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ.

I have just been re-reading the latter which tells the life of Christ from his perspective.
The central theme of the book is that Jesus, while free from sin, was still subject to every form of temptation that we mortals face, including fear, doubt, lust, etc.

A truly fabulous book whether one is religious or not, as indeed I am not.

A first for West Yorkshire

Today in my role as Deputy Mayor of Calderdale, I had the great honour of joining the Mayor and a host of other civic leaders to the Madni Mosque in Halifax to celebrate the first ever Civic Service by any Mayor in West Yorkshire, as far as we know, to take place in a Mosque.

It was a surprisingly moving affair especially when the Vicar of Halifax and a lady from the Interfaith Council, as well as the Imam, addressed the gathered throng.

A perfect counterfoil to those who would spread poison throughout our society by emphasising what unites us all as as human beings rather than what differentiates us.

Griffin the muffin

Does that bigoted bouffanted buffoon, Nick Griffin have a sense of irony?
I only ask because after all that whingeing to get on QT, he was utterly weedily, rubbishly feeble.
When subjected to a mild grilling by an audience of a couple of hundred people in London, he wilted like a soggy chip in the rain.

Earlier today however, he had the nerve to compare these rather polite and mostly respectful people to a "lynch mob", whilst last night he made the stupidly mendacious comment that David Duke ex-Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was the leader of a "non-violent" organisation.

Is the man wilfully stupid, or just plain ignorant of the history of the KKK and the Deep South of the USA?
From the 1860s onwards, thousands of black men were lynched usually on spurious or made-up reasons often with the KKK being implicated as instigators or executioners.

I recommend he listens to "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday.
Mind you I doubt it, a song about lynchings, written by a Jewish man, and sung by a black woman.
One can only hope.

I won't even comment on his odious comments about London being "ethnically cleansed", what a crassly insensitive excuse for a human being.

When lying, lie BIG

Let me put it on the record I am a pacifist and have been and am against the war in Iraq.

However, when three former army chiefs and the commander of the Desert Rats in the first Gulf War, put their names to a letter, saying, "We call on all those who seek to hijack the good name of Britain's military for their own advantage to cease and desist", even I had to take notice.

As you might have guessed they were (probably) referring to the obnoxious and odious BNP using images of a Spitfire with the legend "Battle for Britain". How insulting and stupid can that party get?

The RAF Roll of Honour for the Battle of Britain recognises about 600 pilots from countries other than the UK, alongside more than 2,300 British pilots, that's about one-in-five of "The Few".

When I was at university in Manchester, I lived close to the Koło Polskie and made friends with an aviator who had flown with the 303 "Kosciuszko" Squadron. There was bravery and modesty all in one human package.

The antithesis of the bombastic blustering buffoon Griffin who will be preening his preposterous plumage on Question Time tomorrow.

I can only end with what the generals wrote namely that "the values of these extremists, many of whom are essentially racist, are fundamentally at odds with the values of the modern British military, such as tolerance and fairness".

Cameron setting the agenda?

How depressing to read that once again David Cameron and his Tories attempting to seize the progressive agenda by promising to allow some "all-women shortlists to help us boost the number of Conservative women MPs".

I have long argued for all-women shortlists (which is not official Lib Dem party policy) on the grounds that, although illiberal in the short-term, they will encourage and be successful in increasing the number of women in Parliament, as has been shown by the Labour Party in the 1990s.

I would go one step further and argue for all-bme shortlists, where appropriate, this does not necessarily mean in constituencies with significant numbers of ethnic minorities, viz the success of Ashok Kumar's 1991 by-election win in Langbaurgh and now Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (white population, 98.6%).

Furthermore, the victorious experience of Adam Afriye and Sailesh Vara in primarily white rural constituencies in southern England shows that the "ethnic penalty" no longer exists.

It is time that the Lib Dems (who let us not forget returned the first non-white MP Dadabhai Naoroji in Finsbury Park in 1892) began to take the represetation of ethnic minorities and women far more seriously and to put in place far more radical measures in place to ensure that our party, and more importantly Parliament, much better reflects British society at large.

We shouldn't be palying catch-up with the Tories of all people.

Pocket-money price of alcohol has devastating impact

Almost 10,000 people could die every year because of their drinking. Research from the University of the West of England shows that 90,800 people could die avoidable deaths from alcohol-related causes in the next decade if we continue to drink at the average rate of the past 15 years.
The research maps the whole population’s level of drinking with the number of deaths from alcohol-related causes.
The new findings also show there has been a TREBLING of deaths from 3,054 in 1984 to 8,999 in 2008, as consumption has increased over the past 25 years.

The numbers include diseases directly caused by alcohol and alcohol poisoning, and DO NOT INCLUDE DEATHS CAUSED INDIRECTLY BY ALCOHOL, such as those from drink-driving or cancers which have been caused in part by drinking.
Prof. Martin Plant has said that the UK has experienced "an epidemic of alcohol-related health and social problems" and he recommends "introducing a minimum unit price of 50p" which would cut alcohol-related hospital admissions, crimes, and absence days from work.
These chilling figures are a stark reminder of the shocking death toll caused by excess alcohol consumption.
The Government’s failure to invest in alcohol treatment services and their refusal to stop alcohol being sold at pocket-money prices is having a devastating impact on our health.

The high cost of cheap alcohol is becoming clearer every day.
The Government must heed the advice of its own experts and introduce a minimum price for alcohol, otherwise the death toll will continue to rise and the NHS will be forced to pick up the bill.

“Gracias a la Vida”

Just been listening to this song from the album Homenaje a Violeta Parra by Mercedes Sosa who died a fortnight back.
It is a beautiful and haunting melody with life affirming lyrics written by the Chilean Parra in the 1960s.
She was a symbol of resistance against the vile Argentinean junta of the 1970s, a truly beautiful woman.
If you've not heard the song or Mercedes go and buy it.

Gracias a la Vida que me ha dado tanto
me ha dado la risa y me ha dado el llanto,
asi yo distingo dicha de quebranto
los dos materiales que forman mi cantoy el canto
de ustedes que es el mismo canto
y el canto de todos que es mi propio canto.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my own song.

A bit of cheer - Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali to all my Sikh and Hindu friends.
As the nights draw in this time of year it's nice to celebrate a "festival of lights", celebrating the pure, infinite, and eternal.

I shall be out for some pista barfi and laddoo and a nice cup of tea at some friends later on today.

Don't worry, I'll take some sweets round as well.

A Double Dose of Depression

Just when you thought the US was "post-racial" having elected Obama, along comes Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Louisiana who has refused to marry a couple of different ethnicities.

What's even more shocking is that this is not his first refusal, but his FIFTH, and the authorities have done nothing about it.

Okay the man's an idiot and a racist, but he should not be allowed to be an idiot and a racist on the public purse. Instead, he should be sacked and the prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

When I taught a course on the American Civil Rights movement, I drew my students' attention to Loving v. Virginia (1967), where the Supreme Court unanimously declared the Commonwealth of Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, so ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage.

However, I did have to laugh at his comment that he had, "piles of black friends [who] come to my home [and] use my bathroom". If I was him I'd check to see that they didn't take a dump anywhere else.

Start formal schooling at six

Just read the pre-pub for the Cambridge Primary Review, looking at primary education in England, thus far fascinating and something that I concur with whole-heartedly.

The report sets out an analysis of the problems and recommends:
* Delaying formal lessons until after a child turns six, to allow them to focus on play-based learning. The government currently plans to bring forward the school starting age from five to four.
* Scrapping Sats and league tables and replacing them with teacher assessments in a wider range of subjects than just the 3Rs, to encourage primaries to focus on the broader curriculum.
* Reviewing the system of general primary teachers to introduce more specialist teachers in history, music, and languages.
Funding should be increased to match that spent in secondaries on extra staffing.
Teachers should have two years post-graduate training, instead of one.

As a parent and school governor I think it's barmy that our children start school so young.

When I was working on mainland Europe children did not start formal learning until they were six, and not only did they not seem to visibly suffer in the overwhelming number of cases they flourished.

I hope that the government start to take the recommendations seriously and start a national debate on primary schooling.

Download the briefing document at http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Downloads/Finalreport/CWE-briefing.pdf to read it yourself.

Complete this set, Moses, Martin Luther King, and... David Cameron?

How presumptuous of David Cameron to compare himself to Dr Martin Luther King and Moses.

The latter went up Mount Sinai but never entered the Promised Land, and Dr King famously said, "And He[God]'s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"

David Cameron: "There is a steep climb ahead... The view from the summit will be worth it".

On the fiftieth anniversary of Harold Macmillan's general election victory who famously said "that the class war is obsolete". For the Tories to try to be seen as the champions of the poor is equally delusional and really sticks in the craw.

National Poetry Day

I couldn't let today go past without a mention of my favourite poem, Ozymandias by Shelley.
The final lines are:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Marek Edelman RIP

Sad to hear of the death of Marek Edelman leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

"The Ghetto Fights", his account of how in April 1943 a few hundred young Jews decided to take up arms against the occupying Nazis, choosing to fight rather than face death in the "Final Solution", is a truly remarkable story of courage against impossible odds.

Whenever, people ask the question "Why didn't the Jews fight back?" tell them to read this book.

The world has lost a truly remarkable man.

Cameron's Tories: not liberal, not progressive, and not fit for government‏

Next week sees the Tory Party conference in Manchester, voters should not be fooled into thinking they have changed their spots since they were last in government.

They are not liberal, not progressive, and not fit for government‏.

They are not liberal, Cameron voted to retain Section 28, they would scrap the Human Rights Act, and ‘Liberal’ is still a term of abuse for the Tories, frontbencher Jeremy Hunt recently attacked the BBC for having a ‘liberal bias’.

They are not progressive, Cameron would cut taxes for millionaires, at a cost of £4.4bn, while doing nothing to help low earners. 40% of children in poverty live in one-parent households, yet the Tories’ tax credit reform proposals will only help couples while doing nothing for single parents.

They are not fit for government, economically illiterate, Cameron and Osborne would cut before, not after an economic recovery, risking plunging UK back into recession. They are fiscally incompetent, six unfunded pledges leave a black hole of £53bn in Tory plans according to Treasury estimates; by contrast, Cameron’s recent ‘salad’ speech on cutting costs set out just £120m of savings.

Cameron’s foreign policy would leave the UK isolated on the lunatic fringe of Europe, less safe from terrorism, and international crime.

Cameron’s claim that he would fix broken politics rings hollow in the light of his refusal to punish George Osborne for ‘flipping’ his second home, a move by which the Shadow Chancellor made himself £55,000.

We Liberal Democrats believe in social justice, we believe in a fairer, freer, kinder, gentler society. We do not believe that Britain is broken, and would not use that as an excuse to attack the weakest and those most in need in our society.

Happy Birthday China

Following the Chinese Civil War and the victory of Communist forces under Mao Zedong's over the Guomindang forces of General Jiang Jieshi, who fled to Taiwan, Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.