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Plymouth: dirty man of the South Coast?

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Stuart Bonar fears Plymouth will become the dirty city on the South Coast as councillors pick Devonport as the site for the new incinerator, along with the threat of decomissioning nuclear submarines.

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Time to cut the free BlackBerry mobiles for councillors

y Honou

In these times of cuts, maybe we should look to cut councillors’ Blackberry mobiles, says Stuart Bonar, who reckons they should be able to pay for it out of their allowance

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Nuclear graveyard? No thanks!

Radiation warning symbol

Plymouth should not be the place where nuclear submarines come to die, says Stuart Bonar. While campaigning for the historic links to the Royal Navy, the city needs to diversify economically and protect itself from death by a thousand cut – but that doesn’t mean putting the city’s population in the potential danger of a toxic incident

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Plymouth: greener than you might think

Forder Valley

In Plymouth you’re closer to a wood than you would think – a third of the residents are within a third of a mile of one, Stuart Bonar takes a look at new findings from the Woodland Trust

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Bringing sanity back to our finances

wiping out the debt

The Chancellor’s Spending Review is starting to put right the eye-watering national debt, while maintaining front-line services, says Stuart Bonar

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Coalition dominates Lib Dem discussion at Liverpool conference

Lib Dems

Stuart Bonar is at the Lib Dem Conference in Liverpool, where it’s the first time the coalition has really been discussed by Lib Dem members across the board – and their assessment to date? Well, they seem incredibly possitive. Over to Stuart…

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Posters to make the case for fairer votes

Stuart Bonar's fairer votes poster idea

Take Back Parliament, the group campaigning for a YES vote in next May’s fairer votes referendum, is a real grassroots effort. When they needed to come up with ideas for campaign posters, they didn’t go to some swish London advertising company, but instead ran a competition to crowdsource ideas from amongst their own supporters.

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Commodes, a tutu and an asparagus holder - or a local arts prize?

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

As well as the items which reflect the cultrue and history of Plymouth, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery holds a collection of curios the could be slimmed down, says Stuart Bonar. The money from which could go to a local arts prize

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Fairer votes: it's as easy as 1, 2, 3

PR is sexy

It’s time to do away with safe seats and MPs being elected with ropey mandates, and Proportional Representation will the do that. The proposed new system, called Alternative Vote, is as easy as 1,2,3 says Stuart Bonar, and is both simple and fair

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Money isn’t everything in politics

Stuart Bonar

Stuart Bonar looks at the campaign expenditure of candidates in Plymouth during the general election of 2010 and finds money doesn’t necessarily buy you votes

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Praise where praise is due - Plymouth City Council has started to make its buildings less wasteful... but...

Plymouth Guildhall and Civic Centre

Plymouth City Council is due for some praise, says Stuart Bonar. Thanks to the EU, the Tories in charge have started to grade its buildings’ energy efficiency, and save some of the money wasted on heating and lighting inefficient buildings

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Twitter: it built my team, but didn’t win me votes

Stuart Bonar on Twitter

Plymouth Moor View Lib Dem candidate in the 2010 general election Stuart Bonar gives his honest assessment of how important Twitter and social networks were in his campaigning drive. Here’s a clue, he’s a Twitter convert

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Protect Plymouth's libraries from further cuts

Plymouth Library

Stuart Bonar grew up in Plymouth diding out books for his schoolwork at Plymouth Libraries. Library usage is booming, but in Plymouth’s funding for libraries has dropped, so too has the number of books the libraries stock

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Lib Dems give thumbs up to coalition!

Plymouth Moor View Lib Dem candidate, and member of the Plymouth Lib Dems Stuart Bonar, was in Birmingham for the Lib Dem conference on the coalition with the Conservative Party. And the alliance got the thumbs up from the rank and file

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