Thu 23rd
08:40
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End of the line from Wigan, the Merseyrail service to Liverpool is accessed under the bridge. A curiosity and I imagine a real frustration for users of this line from the May 19th timetable changes by Northern is this:- A double-headed (2 loco) train departs Knowsley Freight Terminal on its way to Wilton Power Station. So it seems, according to Northern that is, that the troubled timekeeping on the Kirkby – Wigan – Manchester line is due to the freight trains to and from Knowsley Freight Terminal causing delays. The freight trains, usually 4 movements per day (2 in – ...
The European Parliament elections are being held in Britain today, using the d'Hondt form of PR. You have until 10pm to vote. You do not need your polling card. Good luck to everyone taking part in democracy today. A little extra good wishes to fellow Liberal Democrats of course. Voting in person Polling stations are open between 7am and 10pm today. You don't need your polling card to vote You have to vote at your local polling station, which is indicated on the polling card. If you've lost your card and aren't sure where to vote, you can look it ...
From Sheena Wellington : This Saturday - 25th May - at 11am - Wighton Hertage Centre, Central Library(doors open 10.30am with tea/coffee available for £1 donation)Cappuccino Concert with Graham Carter, singer/guitarist Graham Carter is a Traditional Singer/Guitarist who is equally at home performing songs of England, Scotland or Ireland. He originally hails from Poole in Dorset but for the last twelve years has been based in Scotland where he has become well known on the Folk Scene. Indeed as well as being a popular folk club guest, he is the main organiser for both Strathaven Folk Club and Strathaven Folk ...
It's been a bloody awful three years. Politics dominated by the psychodrama in the Conservative Party over Europe and the splits in a Labour Party which refuses to declare whether it is for Brexit or Remain. Finally, the sun shows a willingness to break through the storm clouds of British politics. A strong vote for us with a high turnout could see us beat the Brexit Party. This whole campaign has been an absolute joy. We've had the clearest message – vote Lib Dems to stop Brexit – with its fruitier alternative, Bollocks to Brexit – and we have been ...
As I started to write this a while back, there were council elections going on in much of England and Wales. Tomorrow, there will be another set of elections, as we vote in European elections for what will hopefully not ... Continue reading →
It's not easy being in a political party's Press Team when the governing party is in meltdown. After all, Theresa May is seemingly holed up in 10 Downing Street, a chair wedged under the door handle to prevent anyone from getting in. The Leader of the House is gone, and who knows if she's merely the first of many? And all this on the eve of European Parliamentary elections in which the Conservatives are expected to take a kicking not dissimilar to that the Liberal Democrats took in 2015... Lib Dems: Botched Apprenticeship Levy implementation hurting most disadvantaged Gove clutching ...
When I photographed this ghost sign in Clarendon Park on Saturday it rang a bell. Sure enough, I found that I had already photographed another one for Parkinsons Pills at Madeley in Shropshire. You can see it at the bottom of this post. The Lancashire Telegraph once told the firm's history: Parkinsons' pills, manufactured in Burnley, were once known throughout the land - and even overseas. The company claimed that it sold more pills than any other business in the world, with millions being produced annually. It was also the first anywhere to coat tablets with sugar to make them ...
Ten years ago, as polls closed in the local and European elections, it looked like a coup against the unpopular Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown was underway. At 10pm, James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary resigned. Peter Mandelson, the Prince of Darkness himself, came back from the sidelines to knock heads together and take the temperature of the resentment against Brown down to merely simmering for the remainder of his time in office. I did wonder if we were about to see history repeating itself when Andrea Leadsom resigned this evening. We shall see how many of the Cabinet ...
Being pro-European is a key part of the reason why I'm a Liberal Democrat. Here's why.
Heidi Allen gave an extraordinary interview to Channel 4 news tonight. You normally use your eve of poll interviews to talk up your own party. Instead, she told of a split within the group over recommending tactical voting to maximise Remain support. Allen wanted the party to endorse the Liberal Democrats outside London and the South East. You have to wonder if the majority who were against it were the same people who blocked a Remain alliance in the European election. From the New Statesman: Allen believes the party should encourage Remain voters to back the Liberal Democrats outside of ...
If you want to know why I admire Ian Jack so much as a writer, try his London Review of Books piece on The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers. He begins, characteristically, with a little bit of autobiography, remembering his childhood in Fife: A single-track road ran across it, looping downhill through the gorse and wild raspberries to a beach where many of us learned to swim. Elsewhere, mysterious holes in the ground and abandoned military architecture proved ideal for games that involved imaginary rifles and the great thrill of hiding, and ...
Due to the legal secrecy requirements around voting, the Electoral Commission does not want people taking selfies when they are voting.
Hello! I'm Mark Pack, author of 101 Ways To Win An Election, and the maintainer of the largest database of national voting intention polls in the UK, stretching back to 1943. Welcome to a round-up of the latest voting intention figures from each of the polling firms who are currently active in Britain. The final rounds of European Parliament election polls for Great Britain all have the Brexit Party ahead (on 27-38%), then have it tight between Labour (13-25%) and the Lib Dems (12-19%), with the Conservatives (7-14%) consistently behind the Lib Dems and so mixing it with the Greens ...
Good to see this from Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable: Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable ... came down firmly on the side of Birmingham schools that have been targeted by protesters opposed to lessons which portray LGBT people in a positive way, on the eve of a visit to the city. Speaking to Birmingham Live, Sir Vince said: "I want to show respect to the Muslim and Christian and other religions. "But we've been absolutely clear that you can't have a national curriculum that encourages prejudice or discrimination against members of the community. "The idea that you shouldn't have sex ...
Wed 22nd
17:24
Animate Europe Plus, by David Shaw, Marta Okrasko, Juliana Penkova, Bruno Cordoba and Paul Rietzl
Second frame of third entry ("Something is Missing", by Juliana Penkova): Every two years since 2013, the Brussels office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation has run a competition for EU-themed comics. This year's award ceremony was held at the end of last month, and as usual was a nice collection of stories by five artists, one German, one Argentine/German, one Bulgarian/German, one Polish and one from Northern Ireland, David Shaw (now resident in Dublin). I'm glad to say that David Shaw's story, a short narrative about a gay couple driving north across the Irish border and reflecting on the impact ...
* Lydiate Parish Council was in effect no change as a consequence of the local elections held on 2nd May – 7 Labour and 2 Lib Dems although 4 of the Labour members are new to the Council. Cllr. Edie Pope and myself are the two Lib Dem members. I think we all hope that the Parish Council can continue to work well for the community as has been the case for many years now. I'm sure that it will. Footpath sign at Sandy Ln – There's a similar one off Moss Ln * A site meeting took place today ...
Yesterday we were privileged to welcome Vince Cable to Liverpool. It will be one of his last visits as Leader as he intends to step down to allow a contest for a new Leader to take place in June. Of ... Continue reading →
Join me, my family and friends and say Bollocks to Cancer. Also please use your vote tomorrow to say Bollocks to Brexit. The two requests are connected. The development of novel cancer therapies relies on...Continue Reading The post Say Bollocks to Cancer and Bollocks to Brexit appeared first on ten pence piece.
Yesterday we were privileged to welcome Vince Cable to Liverpool. It will be one of his last visits as Leader as he intends to step down to allow a contest for a new Leader to take place in June. I want to put on record just how much I think the Lib Dems owe to this man as we face what is probably the most amazing electoral turnaround (in a positive sense) in our history. In 2015 we came close to becoming irrelevant. Under Tim Farron we weathered that storm and that was no mean feat. We got our membership ...
Passing the University of Leicester's College Court conference centre on Saturday, I saw discreet signs directing visitors to the Attenborough Arboretum. So I went to take a look. The arboretum occupies a large site, around five acres, that once belonged to Knighton Hall's Home Farm. Named for Leicester's favourite son Sir David Attenborough, it was opened by him in 1997. The university's website explains how it is laid out: The planting scheme at the Arboretum is designed to display our native trees in the sequence in which they arrived in this country following the ending of the last ice-age, approximately ...
There is a lot of anger about in British politics today. But I believe we Liberal Democrats are not angry enough. We write a whole pamphlet on Demanding Better, and pass an entire motion on what we want to Demand Better. But we don't condemn. We don't say what we believe is rotten in the practice of government in Britain and the way it has allowed the decline in the state of our nation. We won't convince people about what we want until we say what we reject. So what do we fiercely reject? These are what rouses most anger ...
Wed 22nd
11:15
Voting Liberal Democrat tomorrow: Lord Michael Cashman, former Labour MEP and actor in first British...
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Tue, 12:55: RT @ilgarmammadov: Shame UEFA! The dynastic regime in 🇦🇿 had tolerated freedom of assembly when it was about putting flowers to the 1st Rep... Tue, 12:55: RT @katyusha13: #Brexit related potential "collapse of a firm that employs 4,500 people directly and has 20,000 more at risk in the supply... Tue, 13:54: RT @pswidlicki: Solid analysis from @stephenkb. Its astonishing how much Brexit commentary is divorced from very recent lived political exp... Tue, 17:28: I had not appreciated this (from @skbush's morning update). I must say I think No Deal the most likely outcome, now... https://t.co/9Xkr6ZC0Dg Tue, 18:05: RT ...
[IMG: Tim Prater with the Ringgo app] Ringgo is the Folkestone and Hythe District Council supplier that provides the website and app that allow local residents to buy visitor permits in CPZ areas (such as Sandgate, amongst others). Sandgate and West Folkestone Councillor Tim Prater has made repeated representations to Folkestone & Hythe Parking Services that local residents (including him) find the app difficult to use and clunky, and after discussions between Ringgo and the council a number of changes have been agreed. In feedback from the Tranportation Manager, he confirmed yesterday: "They will be adding a section for wallet ...
YouGov have put out their final poll before the EU elections tomorrow. They have the Brexit Party storming ahead on 37%, the Lib Dems in second on 19%, Labour in third on 13%, the Green on 12% – and the Tories on a lowly 7%. It should be noted again that this is a difficult election to poll; also, that YouGov are showing significantly lower Labour numbers than other pollster. Yet if these are taken at face value, Labour could slip into fourth place, behind not only the Lib Dems but the Greens as well. There is no doubt that ...
I am sending our best wishes from D66 and The Netherlands for the European Elections tomorrow. Here are some pictures from our own European election campaign. This first picture is a group of big letters "WEUROPE" (pronounce "We Europe"). D66 activists travel around big cities with these letters, to point out that we are the most pro-European Dutch party. The people behind the letters are D66 MP's and activists. The second picture is me standing in front of those letters, holding up the famous phrase from the Preamble to the LibDem Constitution. The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard ...
Wed 22nd
09:00Former top civil servant Gus O'Donnell explains why he's voting Lib Dem in the European elections
It's been really lovely to have all the celebrity endorsements we've had in recent days – Katy Brand, Emma Kennedy, Susan Penhaligon, Bamber Gascoigne, Greg Dyke and Simon Callow. However, when people who know exactly how government works urge a Liberal Democrat vote, then it's really getting serious. For six years, Gus O'Donnell served as Cabinet Secretary, the highest ranked civil servant in the country, under three Prime Ministers, Blair, Brown and Cameron. He now sits in the House of Lords. In an unprecedented article for Times Red Box (£), he explains why he feels it is his "civil duty" ...
On the eve of the European elections here in the UK, the European parliament has announced that it is to investigate Nigel Farage for failing to declare lavish expenses funded by Arron Banks: Last week, Channel 4 revealed Farage was generously funded by Arron Banks in the year of the Brexit referendum. Invoices, emails and documents showed Farage benefited from a £13,000-a-month Chelsea home, a car with a driver, and promotional visits to the US in 2016. After the documentary, the Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder called on parliamentary authorities to carry out an urgent investigation into Farage's "apparent contraventions" ...
Will 21st century China some day dominate Asia? Will it succeed in building its neighbourhood that which the United States, guided by the Monroe doctrine, built in the Americas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? My betting is – No. There are ideological, geopolitical and economic factors that will prevent China from subjugating its Asian neighbours. Ideologically, China [...] The post Why China will never dominate Asia appeared first on Radix.
Wed 22nd
08:13
String of high profile Labour, Conservative and independent figures switch to Lib Dems
More converts to the Liberal Democrats thanks to the party's strong line on Brexit. This time it is a former MEP and (until just now at least) Labour member of the House of Lords: I think I've just resigned from the Labour party by declaring that I will support the Liberal Democrats in the European elections. — Michael Cashman (@mcashmanCBE) May 21, 2019 No wonder the party's posters as in such demand and that Ben Goldacre is thinking of voting Lib Dem too.
Greg Dyke, television executive, broadcaster and former Director-General of the BBC, has endorsed the Lib Dems as the party of Remain. He is encouraging all Remainers to vote Lib Dem. Greg says: I strongly believe that Britain is better off inside than outside the European Union and will therefore be backing the Liberal Democrats – the leading pro-European party, and the one that has fought longest and hardest against Brexit – in this week's European election. If you too oppose Brexit, and favour the UK Remaining in the EU at this crucial moment in our country's history, I would urge ...