It is not so long since the countryside around Kettering and Corby was a landscape of vast quarries, mineral railways and aerial ropeways. This 1951 British Pathe film gives you an idea of the scale of the undertaking. The Market Harborough to Northampton road crosses the line of a couple of old ironstone railways. I used to know where they had been and look for the bridge parapets in the hedgerow as the bus sped past, but I have now forgotten those locations.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

I've just come back from an extraordinary meeting of the Economy and Environment scrutiny panel on Calderdale Council. In the meeting the Labour cabinet member for the Economy and Environment portfolio tried to claim the panel couldn't ask any questions about a Department of Transport 'Pinch Point' bid used to obtain money to carry out controversial works at Hipperholme Crossroads. The reason given was that the cabinet had recommended the decision on whether or not to accept Department of Transport funding be refereed to full Council. Now whilst Part 4 Section 20 (j) (iv)'Call-in Exceptions' of the Council's constitution states ...

Posted by jamesbaker on Cllr James Baker

Independent seat. Death The Liberal Democrat candidate is Kate Cairns. Contact is Cath Smith at cath@berwicklibdems.org.uk or on 01665 602901 VPB code is 7C4ADC-4036 Result last time (2013): Ind 705 Con 315 Ind 184 UKIP 178

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Labour seat. Death There is no Liberal Democrat candidate.

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

There's no wonder that people don't trust people involved with politics when local government continues to fail people and remain out of touch. As a Councillor for a small city of more that 17,000 people you would think that, given that there's no other level of government closer to the community, varying levels of local governance [...]

Posted by Rhys Taylor on Rhys Taylor

Independent seat. There is no Liberal Democrat candidate.

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

LD candidate is Gita Gordon (gitug@hotmail.co.uk)

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Labour seat. Death Last time contested (2014) Lab 1,284 Con 626 Green 213 LD 110

Posted by Anders Hanson on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Labour seat. There is no Liberal Democrat candidate.

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Labour seat. Death

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors
YouGov

Four years ago BBC News reported: UK Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned the blockade of the Gaza Strip, describing the territory as a "prison camp". He also criticised Israel for launching an attack on a convoy transporting Turkish activists and aid to Gaza. Nine Turkish citizens died in the raid. He was speaking to an audience of businessmen during a visit to Ankara. ..."Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp," Mr Cameron said. "People in Gaza are living under constant attacks and pressure in an open-air prison," he said.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Why is it so controversial to question Israel's actions? This is a country whose bombs have killed 600 Palestinians, 150 of whom are children. I cannot bear to see the images of dead and severely injured children. There are many of these on Twitter. The UN has said that Israel may have committed war crimes in Gaza and has voted to launch an international inquiry. So, excuse me while I question why the aggressor always wins? David Ward, a Lib Dem MP, posted a tweet which empathizes with the people of Gaza. Is it not normal to put yourself in ...

Posted by Maelo Manning on libdemchild, aged 14

Unfortunately this isn't a story about Disney's Sword in the Stone. Unfortunately it's a story about my take on being a Liberal Democrat post 2010. There are three types of 'Oh's in this story. The first is a pre-2010 'Oh'. An 'Oh' which meant 'Oh you're insignificant', or 'Oh what does that actually mean?'. The [...]

Posted by Rhys Taylor on Rhys Taylor

A post I published here a little over four years ago with a couple of photographs of my office at PAFEC in 1991 has since attracted a steady stream of readers and comments. This week I've been sent some photographs by Derek Barley and Darren Seaton, both former employees. I'm grateful to both of them for their permission to publish them here. Darren sent me this picture from the Strelley Hall stables of his desk that he dates to 1986 or 87. It shows a Westward graphics terminal (I'm unsure of the model, but it looks like it might be ...

I am pleased to say that my motion (see today's earlier posting) to Sefton Council was passed with all-party support. Thanks to all concerned and let's hope this is the start of some progress.

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Ed Davey has one of the toughest jobs in this Government. Trying to convince right-wing Tories to go with him-and vote with him-in the need urgently to tackle the deeply worrying and increasingly imminent threat of man-made Climate Change. I'm one of those who believes David Cameron was, whilst you could argue rightly ambitious, creating [...]

Posted by mathewhulbert on A Liberal Helping

That is the sort of question that has really annoyed me in the past, but I think the way the Resolution Foundation puts it in their important new report, it may be the question to ask. If you don't have the time for a 77 page report on such a sunny day, Gavin's NS blog [...]

Posted by freethinkingeconomist on Freethinking Economist

The following application has been received/accepted by Durham County Council Application Type – Application for a New Premises Licence Applicant: – Anthony Nicholson, Finnians, 7 Trafalgar Street, Consett Premises - Finnians, 7 Trafalgar Street, Consett Date of Application - 23 July 2014 Last date for representations - 20 August 2014 Application details: for the sale of alcohol, provision of regulated entertainment (including live music) and late night refreshment between the hours of 11:00 - 01:30 each day. All indoors only. Please note the last date for representations T: 03000 265107 T: 03000 265102 E: carol.graham2@durham.gov.uk

Posted by Owen Temple on Owen Temple & Margaret Nealis

If the news reports are true, this is truly horrific news. FGM is one of the oldest and most extreme ways to control the lives and bodies of young women and girls and sadly it's prevalent across the Middle East and North Africa. This only emphasises why it is critically important we act together to end FGM once and for all. This is why the Coalition Government held the Girl Summit just two days ago, where faith and community leaders came to together to sign a declaration condemning the practice and reiterating it is in no way a requirement by ...

Posted by Lynne Featherstone on Lynne Featherstone » Blog

[IMG: Charles Kennedy] The Independence Referendum campaign continues to be depressing. The only really good things associated with it tend to come from Liberal Democrats and most especially Charles Kennedy. He's written a thoughtful and persuasive article in the Herald about the dilemma facing Scotland beyond 18th September as, whoever wins, we've all lost out from increasing centralism to Edinburgh in recent years. He outlines the problem: In the pre-devolution days of one- party Tory domination there was much legitimate railing against the excessive concentration of power within Whitehall. The centre accrued and amassed while the periphery lost out. Holyrood ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice
eUKhost

The World Health Organisation has called for sex work to be decriminalised. Vox presents some interesting evidence for why this might be a good idea. It comes from a rather embarrassing slip up by Rhode Island's politicians: The state's legislature amended a law in 1980, believing that the law inadvertently outlawed some forms of consensual sex [...]

Posted by Mark Mills on Matter Of Facts

[IMG: Gaza Burns - photo by Al Jazeera English] Israel's current actions - indeed its actions since 1948 - are based on three core drum-beat principles; it has a right to exist; it has the most moral Armed Forces in the world; and it is surrounded by enemies intent on its destruction, But there is a fourth 'truth', never acknowledged by Mark Regev or other spokespersons, that Israel itself caused all of the current conflict decades ago by taking more land than the UN allotted to it in 1948 (1), and driving out the indigenous population (2), Then taking yet ...

Posted by Kerry Hutchinson on Liberal Democrat Voice

I am looking at the question of whether it is a good idea to base a political party on the labour/trades union movement at all. This is not having a go at trade unions, which exist to serve their members' interests, and have as much right to do so as anyone has, whether or not it serves the common good - though it often will. Trade unions exist to win a better and/or fairer deal for their members. Fairer deals must be a good thing, and unions which achieve this are therefore supporting the common good, providing they don't cause ...

Posted by Joe Otten on The Extra Bold Blog

[IMG: Nick Clegg 3 - Paul Walter] Cosmopolitan magazine caught up with Nick Clegg at the Girl Summit the other day. They have launched their own campaign to remember the victims of "honour killings", surely the most inappropriate way to describe cold blooded murder. The images they've had designed to illustrate their campaign are extremely hard hitting. He was asked what he thought Cosmo's young women readers could do to help end FGM and forced marriage: ...the most powerful change of all is girls and women speaking up. Not allowing this to lurk in the shadows, or be swept under ...

Posted by Newsmoggie on Liberal Democrat Voice

A coalition of environmental NGOs is calling for the post of Europe's chief scientist to be axed. Roger Pielke Jr explains why this is a misguided and shortsighted proposal On Tuesday, a group of European health and environmental NGOs sent a letter to the president-elect of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, urging him to scrap the position of chief scientific adviser to the president of the Commission, a role currently held by Professor Anne Glover. On seeing this demand, my thoughts immediately turned to Richard Nixon. More than 40 years ago, US president Richard Nixon abolished the presidents council of ...

Posted by Roger Pielke Jr on Political science | The Guardian

I see the coalition is once again struggling to keep down the size of the deficit and is missing their targets for this year. It is down, of course, from the worrying levels of 2010. But my colleague James Meadway has written a very interesting blog for the New Economics Foundation which suggests that, although the government borrowing total is down, the rest of the economy is still absolutely constipated with debt. The latest debt statistics show that the average household debt including mortgages is £54,700. Outstanding consumer credit debt is up another £5 billion on last year. James Meadway ...

Posted by David Boyle on The Real Blog

There has been a burglary between 11:45 - 18:00 hrs 23/07/2014 at Robins Lane, Lolworth. Entry via rear patio door, which may have been insecure as no sign of forced entry. Items stolen include jewellery, and cash. There have been witness reports of two young males in the area at the time of the offence, age 20-30yrs one described as 5ft 10", blond hair, wearing light coloured top and jeans. Second male described as wearing light clothing. Did you see anything suspicious? Call as below, crime ref: CF0277840714 Police 101 or Crimestoppers 0800 555 111 Kind regards Rachel Carr

Posted by Andy Pellew on Focus on Bar Hill

[IMG: Nigel Farage, Leader, UK Independence Party (UKIP)] This week saw the latest in Lord Ashcroft's polls of the marginal battleground seats that will decide the result of the next general election. This crop focused on 14 marginal Conservative-held seats where Labour are in second place. The overall news was half-encouraging for Labour. As it stands, Ed Miliband's party is poised to win 11 of these 14 seats next May. The average swing from Tory to Labour of 4.5% would be enough to win 53 Tory seats, which, as as Ashcroft notes, "combined with the 17 seats my recent polling ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: arizona-execution-drugs] Yesterday, a man named Joseph Wood was killed by the state of Arizona for the crime of double murder. This in and of itself is not newsworthy; it is the fact that the execution appears to have gone slightly wrong, causing Mr Wood unintentional suffering that is of note. The death row inmate apparently choked for two hours in what some said appeared to be horrible pain (although there are conflicting accounts on this). The manner in which he was "put down" is supposed to take fifteen minutes and be agony free. I would like to be able ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

There is a certain relief in reports that the Liberal Democrat leadership have finally seen reason with the 'bedroom tax' - 'sinners repenteth' and so forth. After all, the concept that a policy might be implemented, tested in the field and, if found wanting, changed or scrapped, is a good one. The problem is, and always was, that they were warned at the very beginning by those with experience of local government - predominantly in the Lords - that you couldn't introduce such a penalty unless there was sufficient social housing availability to allow tenants to downsize easily and provision ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on The view from Creeting St Peter

[IMG: Tim Farron Social Liberal Forum conference Jul 19 2014 Photo by Paul Walter] Reprinted from Liberal Democrat Voice. One thing that struck me about Tim Farron's Beveridge lecture last Saturday was the scale of his ambition for investment in infrastructure. Conservatives have often talked about their admiration of Victorian values - if only they really did admire those values, because Victorian values included ambition to build an infrastructure, to create a transport, communications and logistics backbone to our economy, to make a difference, to see a problem and not worry about whether fixing it would fit with your ideology, ...

Posted by Joe Otten on The Extra Bold Blog

[IMG: CO 1069-1-3. Harold Macmillan. Photo by National ArchIves UK] Over on politics.co.uk, party president Tim Farron has been expanding on some of the themes of his weekend lecture. He begins with some interesting history: When you ask me who my political heroes are, I will reel off a list of people like Beveridge, Penhaligon, Harry Willcock (the man who brought down the ID cards scheme in the 1950s) and Paddy Ashdown. But in the last 12 months I have become attached to Harold MacMillan, when he was housing minister between 1951-1954. This admission usually raises an eyebrow or two. ...

Posted by Nick Thornsby on Liberal Democrat Voice

If you are, there's a questionnaire going around from the sustainable transport folks that you might want to fill in. Drop me a comment or a tweet if you want a copy and I'll email you one over. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

'Lessons must be learned' from diabetic former soldier, who died after benefits sanction (tags: ) If you suffer from or have suffered from depression please take this survey (tags: ) Alice Cooper 'relishing' prospect of annual UK royalty cheque (@realalicecooper) (tags: ) Do take care to cook your chicken properly, folks. Or, you know, don't buy cheap chicken. (tags: ) Screen Yorkshire is a rare example of how Yorkshire has the autonomy to attract investment (tags: ) Offshore wind farms become magnets for hungry seals (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

Given that it is Royal Welsh Show week I suppose that it is to be expected that the usual suspects would be wheeled out to support the bizarre and failed badger cull in England and to call for it to be reinstated here, in Wales. I have not been disappointed. Somehow, simplistic solutions are appealing despite the over-whelming evidence that they are entirely ineffective. So it has been with the shoot-first and ask-questions-later brigade. I was pleased therefore to see a sensible contribution to the debate in today's Western Mail from Wales' chief vet Professor Christianne Glossop, who has managed ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

There are some people whose emails I always want to read - parents, partners, daughter, close friends. There are some people whose emails it is important for me to read - my PPCs, my treasurer, my council group leader, stuff from work, or from region. Maybe 1% of the email I get falls into both of those categories; 95% of the email I get does not fall into either one. I use gmail labels extensively, and this has worked very well for me. So, while I was in Devon, I put the vacation responder on. I'd seen other people do ...

A few times of late, I have heard rumours that the plans for a new convenience store and filling station on the corner of Coronation Avenue and Bromfield Road have been turned down (14/00563/FUL). I have also heard that it has been approved. The application has yet to be decided. The sticking point is, unsurprisingly, [...]

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

[IMG: KingshillJctnCropped] In a letter to the Editor of the Berkhamsted Gazette Liberal Democrat Berkhamsted Town Councillor Garrick Stevens has outlined the plans that he and fellow Town Councillor Danny Bonnett have put forward to Berkhamsted Town Council. He writes: Dear Sir Your report [Gazette 9th July 2013] of the Town Council's meeting that discussed the proposal to partner the County Council to fund the planned lights controlled crossing at the junction of Kings Road and Shootersway was somewhat misleading. I'd like to set the record straight. The junction has long been regarded as a traffic congestion and safety hotspot: ...

Posted by nickhollinghurst on Nick Hollinghurst

Residents have expressed concern about the extent of graffiti by the rail line - see below - near Riverside Drive, south of the Botanic Garden.I have reported this to Network Rail requesting its removal.

If I lived in Gaza I would... If I lived in Gaza I would what? If I lived in Gaza I wouldn't be me. I certainly wouldn't be a middle-aged British Liberal Democrat. So there was something silly about David Ward pondering what he would do if he lived in Gaza. Whatever that conflict there is about, it isn't about you, David. Still, David has not been half as silly as some of his critics. Last night Conservatives took to Twitter to demand his instant expulsion from the party:" One bladder-on-a-stick called Nadhim Zahawi has even written to the Metropolitan ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

[IMG: A Southport bound Class 156 DMU at Burscough Bridge Station on the Southport - Wigan - Manchester Line.] A Southport bound Class 156 DMU at Burscough Bridge Station on the Southport – Wigan – Manchester Line. I am moving the motion below at the meeting of Sefton Council tonight and am hoping it will get all-party support. ***** That the Council welcomes publication of the Draft City Region Long Term Rail Strategy but is concerned that the Southport – Wigan – Manchester line, which supports commuter travel for Sefton residents living in the north of the Borough who work ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-28190351 I posted on this historic site a while ago:- The funding on the table from Liverpool City Council is most welcome and it seems to indicate a change of heart from 'we have no money, we will not do anything to the building' approach of not so long ago.

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

"There's no future for the Lib Dems as a party of the centre," goes the cry from radicals on both wings of our party. So I was interested to see this polling data from YouGov (hat-tip Adam Corlett) looking at where voters place themselves on the left-right axis and where they place the parties and their leaders. And yes, I know we don't buy into the idea of a binary left-right axis, but it can't be entirely dismissed. As YouGov explains, "tracking data compiled over as many as 12 years gives a clear sense of how the main parties and ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice

It might have seemed in 1964 that Brian Wilson was on top of the world. Not only had the Beach Boys managed to withstand Beatlemania, despite the British band being on the same record label as them, but unlike almost every other American group they'd actually become more successful, having their first number one hit [...]

Posted by Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

Liberal Democrats have announced that future Governments will be required by law to help fight fuel poverty by making the coldest, leakiest homes more energy efficient. Households on low incomes and high energy costs, often caused by poorly insulated homes, will face lower bills as they are raised to a B and C energy efficiency rating by 2030. Alongside this, the consultation Cutting the Cost of Keeping Warm puts a particular emphasis on helping low-income households who are not connected to the gas grid and those whose health can suffer from living in the cold. Proposed changes to the private ...

Posted by Andy Pellew on Focus on Bar Hill