Our latest email newsletter for Lib Dem members in Gateshead was published recently. Issues covered included the action day in Pelaw and Heworth, the recent regional conference in Darlington and the Gateshead AGM. You can view the newsletter on this link.
Our latest eFocus for the Whickham area, no. 109, has just been published. Issues covered include: D-Day decision on greenbelt executive house-building plans Lest we forget - residents turn out in force for Remembrance Day parade and services Post office provision in Whickham under threat Arson at Marley Hill bowling club Christmas market at the Whinnies. You can view eFocus on this link.
In 1998, about 300 Guardian articles mentioned populism. In 2016, 2,000 did. What happened? • Revealed: how populists tripled their vote over 20 years Populism is sexy. Particularly since 2016 - the year of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump - it seems as if journalists just cannot get enough of it. In 1998, the Guardian published about 300 articles that included the terms "populism" or "populist". In 2015, these terms were used in about 1,000 articles, and one year later this number had doubled to almost 2,000. The increasing popularity of the term is no coincidence. ...
I have been reading posts and responses on LDV and LibDem-linked sites for some years. Although LDV posts sometimes don't follow entirely the same practice as many others, the comments often do. With that in mind and to avoid falling into the category of Grumpy Old Man, I write to offer ten suggestions about how to enter into the true spirit of internet debating: It's important to get right the overall tone. Try for a core approach of righteous indignation. There's no need to be overtly patronising; most people will get the message anyway. You should cultivate an air of ...
Responding to Theresa May's speech to the CBI conference yesterday, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said:"Theresa May is desperately trying to win over the Brexit hardliners on the Tory benches by promising tough new immigration controls. But she still refuses to publish any details of her plans, more than a year after the white paper was originally due."The PM is trying to hide the truth: that her plans would either fail to end free movement as she claims, or place a huge new bureaucratic burden on employers while damaging our economy and undermining public services. Either way, that's ...
Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable has today urged the Bank of England to conduct "an honest assessment of the Brexit deal and the options" and produce economic analysis of what remaining in the EU will mean for the UK economy. The calls follow the appearance of Bank of England Governor Mark Carney before the Commons Treasury committee this morning where he said that the Bank of England was "not intending to look at providing additional analysis on the third scenario which is no Brexit at all." However, just last night the House of Commons forced the Government to ...
"More than fifty shades of diplomacy." So says Britain's Ambassador talking about the nuances of international relations in a BBC documentary about the Foreign Office, the first part of which was shown last week. It opens just after the 2017 election, with Boris addressing the assembled ranks in the Foreign Office. Typically, he talks about the fate of the Conservative Party in front of impartial civil servants. He talked about wanting to go to Tehran – and we all know how his dealings with the Iranians ended up for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The Permanent Secretary, Sir Simon MacDonald, talked about the ...
Mon, 12:56: Jo Johnson: the inside story of Brexit and where it all went wrong https://t.co/eRBQe2U3ar This is paywalled, but i... https://t.co/YeBncSF1J6 Mon, 14:35: I still think No Deal, or a general election, more likely than fresh referendum; but deal passing (if not on first... https://t.co/wTHgMdf3M2 Mon, 16:05: Why California's Wildfires Are So Destructive, In 5 Charts https://t.co/d8JHaj1LpN Grim reading from @FiveThirtyEight. Mon, 17:21: At @epc_eu meeting on Kosovo. I asked if Serbia has implemented 2011 obligations on cadastral records. @Ardiangjini... https://t.co/Z0DuaKi2sW Mon, 18:39: RT @KeohaneDan: @nwbrux That is my hunch too, not that I'd place money on it, I ...
How new media recycles the mainstream press This is very interesting; it concentrates primarily on The Canary, but there's a good wider point in there about all media. 1910 film of Frankenstein rediscovered this is very cool If you like what you see here (or even if you don't) please consider dropping me a tip: [IMG: Paypal Donate Button] [IMG: Buy Me an uncaffeinated beverage (because I'm allergic to coffee) at ko-fi.com] [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Tue 20th
10:26
For the first time since June 2016, I feel like Brexit not happening is more likely than it happenin...
Some housekeeping first: looks like the 48 letter challenge to May's premiership has stalled, rather embarrassingly for the main cheerleaders involved. Meanwhile, Spain is threatening to bring down the whole deal from the EU side over provisions covering Gibraltar – remember, the deal still has to be ratified by the EU27. There are still a lot of twists and turns in the tail. The way I see it, we've come down to two choices: May gets her deal through parliament and we thus get a very soft Brexit (or indeed, stay in transition for possibly decades) or we will have ...
Vince did an interview last week that I expect he enjoyed more than most. The interviewer wasn't Eddie Mair, or Andrew Neil, but his grandson Ayrton. As an ambassador for the I Will campaign , which aims to engage young people in social action, he took the chance to interview his Grandad. Vince has always been pretty robust about how the older generation has shafted young people. He talked about how important it is for young people to get involved, engaged and to get out and vote. Watch the video here: My grandson and @iwill_campaign Ambassador Ayrton Cable interviews me ...
If any of the money promised for Northern Ireland as part of the deal with the DUP has not been paid over yet, then the Treasury needs to seriously consider cancelling the payment altogether. Voting in the House of Commons last night clearly showed that the DUP have walked away from this agreement and are actively engaged in undermining Theresa May and her government. Having brought down the government in Stormont due to their intransigence Arlene Foster's party are now trying to do the same to the UK. Those of us who have studied history will remember the extreme measures ...
Byant House, at the junction of Shop Lane and Liverpool Road North, used to be leased to Sefton Council who had an outpost of its Social Services Dept. in there and some other municipal functions. However, the Council moved out some years ago. Since then it's really not had any occupancy at all although it has been touted for use as a children's nursery and even a Wetherspoons Pub. The latter caused a real stir in the nearby community back in 2011 but of course, it never came to fruition. The photo above was taken a few days ago and ...
Dear Mr Lloyd I, along with many other of your fellow Liberal Democrats, have noted with considerable alarm, your intention to vote with the government on the issue of Brexit. Not only is this totally at variance with the party and the manifesto on which you fought the last General Election, but it flies in the face of your duty as an MP to vote in the best interests of your constituency and the country. It is worth remembering the letter written by Edmund Burke MP to his constituents in which he examines the whole question of what an MP's ...
The political discourse over most of my lifetime has been "who are these lying liars who are lying to me". It is incredibly rare to get an interview that tells you who a politician and why they believe what they believe. No wonder we get the "you are all the same" on the doorstep. The fact is that on all sides of the political spectrum and, indeed the Brexit debate, there are genuinely honest and caring people trying to do their best for their constituents and the country- often at considerable personal cost. That a small group of fanatics have ...
Article Two of the UN Convention on Genocide, in December 1948, defined genocide as "any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group [...] The post The genocide that dare not speak its name appeared first on Radix.
Saturday 24th November sees the start of the West End Christmas Fortnight, which will be launched with a children's crafts event followed by fortnight of many activities across the West End. A highlight of the fortnight will be the Christmas Lights Switch On for the West End and a spectacular fireworks extravaganza, taking place on Wednesday 28th November. This year's West End Christmas Concert takes place that evening at Dundee West Church at 6.15pm. There will be musical contributions from all local primary and secondary schools. The concert will be hosted by Gordon Sharp. We are delighted that "The Notables" ...
No music today, I'm afraid, for we have another clutch of press releases, including one which some of our readers might vaguely recognise as an overdue recycling of an old theme... PM must come clean on immigration plans Lib Dems: Only alternative to Brexit is a 'People's Vote' FOBT change finally ending cruel grip of industry on vulnerable people It's time Fox was given his P45 Tories can no longer bury Brexit truth PM must come clean on immigration plans Responding to Theresa May's speech to the CBI conference this morning, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said: Theresa ...
The MP for Eastbourne, Stephen Lloyd, is intending to vote for the government's Brexit deal in Parliament. Here's why in his own words: I campaigned and publicly debated for Remain during the 2016 referendum, and still believe that remaining within the European Union is in the best interests of our nation. I also made a promise during the campaign that I would not support calls for a second referendum, and would support the final negotiated deal the Prime Minister brings back to the Commons. And as my constituency Eastbourne knows, when I give my word to the town I keep ...
I tried another of Leicester's new pubs on Saturday - The Two-Tailed Lion in Millstone Lane. It's website describes it as a traditional English free house with modernist flair, situated in a listed building within the historic Greyfriars area of Leicester.Recommended for its building and select range of real ale and craft beers.
I previously covered how the House of Lords voted to 'refer back' the judgement against Lord Lester (whose membership of the Liberal Democrats is currently suspended) over allegations of sexual harassment. The turnout of Liberal Democrat peers in the vote was relatively low as it happened at the same time as the Liberal Democrat House of Lords group was holding an away day out of London. Of those who were there to vote, they split as follows: In favour of upholding the ruling against Lord Lester Kishwer Falkner Meral Hussein-Ece (whose speech is well worth reading) Dick Newby (Lib Dem ...
Lord Bonkers has sometimes written about Bonfire Night at the hall, but until now I did not realise that Halloween was celebrated there too. Wednesday Today is Halloween, when ghosts and demons walk abroad and the streets of Oakham are thronged with the sheeted figures of defeated candidates from long-forgotten by-elections. The Revd Hughes, very wisely, takes the day off and bars the shutters at the Vicarage. The Well-Behaved Orphans, being little horrors themselves, always demand a scary bedtime story from me on this night. I decide to call their bluff this year by reading them the most frightening thing ...
As part of my recovery from the SCT I've just returned from a long weekend in York. Other than a few day trips and a weekend there when my children were very small, it's somewhere I've never spent much time. There was also a weekend at York University on an Open University management course in [...] The post Transplant +68: York appeared first on ten pence piece.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, is holding a meeting in Oadby on 6 December, starting at 5.30. The meeting will take place at John Foster Hall, Manor Road, Oadby, Leicester LE2 2LG and is being organised by Harborough, Oadby & Wigston Lib Dems. Tickets are free - apply online if you would like to attend.
Current The Prisoner and The Fugitive, by Marcel Proust Burr, by Gore Vidal Last books finished Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem, by Ruth Padel Next books The Stone Book Quartet, by Alan Garner And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
Today is World Toilet Day. No, this isn't a joke, WTD is observed every year on 19th November. Last year's theme was "Wastewater" - this year's is "When Nature Calls." I urge (a common verb in discussing our need for toilets) you to look up the details here: http://www.worldtoiletday.info/wtd2018/ One of the things I do is give talks on behalf of "Water Aid." Probably the most attractive feature of Water Aid's work, in both interest and fund raising, is helping to provide safe, clean and reliable supplies of water to the 750 million people in the world who don't have ...
Ten per cent - TEN PER CENT - of the population of Cumbria are using food banks! said a fellow church-goer to me in horror, after a Sunday service in a West Cumbrian village church. We were discussing the local bearing of the damning findings by the UN rapporteur Philip Alston, reporting on the effects of austerity policies on Britain today. After a twelve-day tour of Britain's towns and cities, Mr Alston, UN expert on extreme poverty and human rights, spoke in stark term about his findings, in London on Friday. Clearly shocked by what he had found, according to ...
While the Suez crisis was unfolding some of us ten year olds in a junior school playground discussed our vague awareness of Government incompetence. It was not my first school. I was born in the tough Scotswood Road area of Newcastle. Crucially I was an only child so my parents, living in a two room flat couldn't get on the council house waiting list. This led to my father joining a ground-breaking self-build housing scheme, which in due course led to us moving across town. That may well have contributed to my assumption that alternative solutions to problems were part ...
Social media has been filled with opinions on how Shami Chakrabarti's interview on the Andrew Marr show went this past weekend. A large chunk of left-wing opinion seems to feel that Marr was bullying towards her in a way that may possibly have been sexist or even mysogynistic. Having watched the interview a few times now, there is no way Marr is being sexist. There is never a point at which he uses any language that could be interpreted as such. I think this argument is just rubbish. As for bullying, well, he goes at her pretty hard, this is ...
A few years ago back on my old blog, I did an occasional series of posts that ̶s̶h̶a̶m̶e̶l̶e̶s̶s̶l̶y̶ ̶r̶i̶p̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶T̶V̶ ̶G̶o̶ ̶H̶o̶m̶e̶ carefully parodied various parts of TV, films and politics. Collected here are some of the more amusing ones, along with a entirely new idea too: (With thanks to Justin McKeating and Jennie Rigg for some of the Twitter conversations that led to these, but please blame only me for the bad bits) Eggbound "I have a very particular set of dietary requirements"The Pitch: Following a freak accident on a previous mission, inexplicably Irish-accented CIA agent Brendan McPuncherson ...
Sun, 12:56: Rare microbes lead scientists to discover new branch on the tree of life https://t.co/6Ht8cqIuth The hemimastigotes... https://t.co/spir2P77nR Sun, 17:09: Good thread on Raab. https://t.co/eo2I7vka2U Sun, 19:25: A visit to the ruins of Sirmium https://t.co/uuhaIlWey9 Mon, 08:38: RT @damonwake: Crunch Brexit talks today for the EU 27. Main message from the very cold doorstep -- no we will not be renegotiating the dea... Mon, 09:08: RT @LaszloAndorEU: 10 critical moments of the 10 years of #FinancialCrisis. Do you agree these were the most important ones? More importan... Mon, 09:33: RT @anandMenon1: Nailed by @MattChorley in @timesredbox https://t.co/6fXX8hYa6D Mon, 10:45: ...
Mon 19th
10:01
"People's Vote is only route out of this Brexit mess" and comment on food and medicines stockpiling
Daisy Cooper, St Albans Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Candidate said: Since the vote to leave the EU, Brexit has brought nothing but bad news. EU health workers have been leaving the NHS at an alarming rate, businesses are investing elsewhere and now we find out that the Conservative government's deal would tie us to EU rules but without [...]
Mon 19th
10:00
May's Brexit deal is the best the Tory party can produce, but there are better options for for the c...
The Guardian recently offered an interactive tool which allowed readers to guess how many votes May's deal would get in the House of Commons. (Apologies that I cannot find the link to the tool at the moment). I had a fiddle around with the tool. What was astonishing is that whatever way one tweaked the tool, May was about 50-60 votes short of a majority. The basic problem is that there is a chunk of Tories, and probably DUP members, who will vote against the deal. The only way to make up the shortfall caused by those votes against, is ...
End of the line from Wigan, the Merseyrail service to Liverpool is accessed under the bridge. The Liverpool Echo has the story on its website – see link below:- Ormskirk Station – The train in the foreground is Preston bound (when it's not being replaced by a bus). The one behind it is Liverpool bound. I'm informed that this week is going to be yet another commuting challenge on many Northern routes because of the lack of availability of trains i.e. too many of them are bust. And the reason they are bust? Well for those of you who ...
Strongmen rule - Erdogan, Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin, Savini. Where Liberal Democracy and the 'bourgeois parties' fail to present their electorates with a strong, credible leader, the political vacuum is increasingly filled with political strongmen. Populists, nationalists, radical right-wingers, the game generally follows the same rules: wishy-washy liberals have brought the country down, national pride must [...] The post Take me to your leader - the challenge for Keir Starmer appeared first on Radix.
By far the most remarkable interview over the weekend was that on Sky News between Sophy Ridge and Jeremy Corbyn. As the Guardian reports not only does the Labour Leader appear to believe that the UK can get the same benefits outside the EU as inside, a view debunked by two years of detailed negotiation and every statement by an EU leader, but he continues to stick to his pro-Brexit line despite the clear downsides of such a position. The idea that Labour can somehow get a better deal than that delivered by Theresa May is both unevidenced and not ...
At a time when the Government, or at least some of it, is offering the British public a Brexit deal which appears unacceptable to Remain and Leave supporters alike, where five Cabinet Ministers have taken it upon themselves to go try to redraft it in their own image, regardless of the fact that they might need to agree it with the European Union, the fact that the Leader of the Opposition cannot even bring himself to say how he would vote should there be a second referendum might seem like a mere sideshow in a Whitehall farce. One need not ...
The Liverpool Echo has the story on its website – see link below:- My recollection is that this NHS Trust has gone through testing times in the recent past and issues such as these bullying allegations can't be anything but more bad news. An organisation like the NHS needs to have exemplary industrial relations so why do we keep hearing of staff working for it being unhappy with and having a lack of confidence in NHS whistleblowing processes?
From Dundee Money Action : You're invited to join us for our second open day on Thursday 22nd November to hear more about the work of Dundee Money Action and how we are able to support your client base. This event will take a similar format to our previous event held at the end of August, which was very well received by those who attended, with very positive feedback about the content and information provided about our service. We are running four identical sessions over the course of the day - one hour sessions starting at 9.30am, 11am, 2pm, 3.30pm, ...
This is a summary of all the changes (I think) to car parking charges in Ludlow from this morning. Shropshire Council has made it clear there will be no leeway for people that misunderstand the new rules. Be careful about pop and shop, which is now cut to five minutes plus a ten-minute observation time. The system has also gone largely digital. The cost of residents' permits is now £100, three times the West Midlands average of £35. Only one permit is allowed for each household and only for a vehicle registered at that address. Residents' permits All permits are ...
The new episode of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is now up. It's a look at "Good Rockin' Tonight", called by some the first rock and roll record. Find out how a shortage of insect secretions and ... Continue reading →