[IMG: mike hancock] Mike Hancock, elected as Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South in 2010 but suspended from the party following allegations of sexual harassment made by a constituent, has resigned from the party, according to the Independent: (Hancock) spent almost five years denying that he had sexually harassed a vulnerable constituent until eventually he admitted in court that he had behaved in a way that made her "feel deeply uncomfortable and discriminated against". He was suspended from the Liberal Democrats' parliamentary group and lost his seat on Portsmouth Council. The party has chosen another candidate to fight his parliamentary ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: No yes scotland photo by kyoshi masamune] Polls closed at 10pm in the referendum which will decide if Scotland remains within the United Kingdom. The final opinion poll of the campaign – YouGov's, released an hour ago – points to a 54% No, 46% Yes result. Within a few hours we'll know how accurate that forecast is. Certainly those involved in the Better Together camp seem confident of victory. After all the tension of the last fortnight, it might all prove to be something of an anti-climax: a narrow but decisive confirmation of the status quo. Feel free to ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

Please pass this results list on to everyone you think may be interested, and remind them that the Yate and Dodington In Bloom certificates will be presented at our volunteers' evening, 7.30pm next Thursday 25 September at Poole Court. Everyone who has contributed to these splendid results will be welcome. Congratulations to all concerned! =================== YATE AND DODINGTON IN BLOOM RESULTS PENNANT AWARD GOLD PENNANT in Town and City (North) category NEIGHBOURHOODS ON THE PENNANT ROUTE Wapley Common and the Orchard for the Future - Level 5 Outstanding Dodington Allotments - Level 5 Outstanding Kingsgate Park - Level 5 Outstanding ...

Posted by Paul Hulbert on Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington

While I've been talking about the Scottish independence referendum online over the last few weeks, I've been careful to try not to talk about how I would have voted, or to tell the people of Scotland how to vote. If you want to understand why there are such resentments at the way the UK is governed, the tendency of many English people to assume that no one can make a decision before they've weighed in and given their opinion is a good place to start looking. So, I've scheduled this post for a little after 10pm, when voting should have ...

Posted by Nick on What You Can Get Away With

Independent seat.

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Labour seat. Resignation There is no Liberal Democrat candidate.

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Labour seat.

Posted by Victor Chamberlain on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Cllr Aidan Van de Weyer will, at the September meeting of South Cambridgeshire District Council, call on the Council to resist developers attempts to reduce the amount of affordable housing that will be included in the district's new town of Northstowe. "By allowing developers to brow-beat this Council into accepting a level of social housing far below this district's long-term needs we are letting down the future workers who will be required to make Northstowe a vibrant community", said Cllr Van de Weyer. "Northstowe is the obvious choice to meet our social housing requirements - where else can we build ...

Posted by Andy Pellew on Focus on Bar Hill

[IMG: Policy Unpacked logo] For decades local and regional government in the US has attempted to capture value created in the real estate market in order to fund vital urban infrastructure. In an era of austerity, where resources for conventional public investment are perceived to be increasingly scarce, governments around the world are interested the potential for learning lessons and transferring successful policies or instruments. In this podcast I discuss a range of issues around active government policy in the real estate markets with Graham Squires, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Real Estate at the University of Birmingham. (Running time: ...

Posted by admin on Alex's Archives

Hallaton © Graham Horn Today's newspapers loved the story of the two skeletons that were found holding hands. But even more interesting is the place that they were found. The University of Leicester Archaeological Services website explains: ULAS archaeologists have been working with local volunteers to uncover the lost chapel of St Morrell overlooking the small village of Hallaton in east Leicestershire. The Fourth year of excavations with the Hallaton Fieldwork Group (HFWG) has revealed the full plan of the chapel as well as the cemetery and evidence that the hillside has been used since at least the Roman period. ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
YouGov

At the time of writing people across Scotland are voting in the independence referendum to decide whether to stay in the UK or leave. The polls all seem to indicate a narrow lead for a No vote to independence and I personally expect that will be the outcome as well. However, in the event of a Yes vote then practically everything in politics will change as Scotland and the rest of the UK are committed to (at least) two years of negotiations followed by independence. So, here's a handy guide on what Liberal Democrats should do in the event of ...

Posted by George Potter on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: Simplicity] At the weekend I ran the first of a series of guest posts from would-be Lib Dem President Linda Jack setting our her plans for the party in more detail. Here's her second post, expanding on her previous comments about wanting to change and simplify the way the way party is run. You can read Linda's first guest post, Linda Jack sets our her plans for party reform: four problems to fix, here whilst I've also blogged my thoughts on one of her ideas in that first post – though you'll notice from her comments below that Linda ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

You are welcome.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

[IMG: Advice on dealing with complaints] The Rubuss Guide to responding to customer complaints (embedded below) contains plenty of advice which is also relevant to MPs, their staff, councillors and others responding to communications from the public. Point 1 is especially relevant – my heart sinks each time I see a letter that is meant for the public written as if the recipient will already be a true believer who is up with all the latest jargon. Writing not only clearly, but writing persuasively, is the way to go. Jargon doesn't explain things and hectoring or ignoring their points doesn't ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

I am currently sitting in the back of the Habitat 3 Committee listening to colleagues from local government and national government making speeches about the new UN programme which will kick in during 2016. As I have remarked before it ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

A very interesting blog-post from two Southampton academics, Will Jennings and Jerry Stoker – Parties and anti-politics – examines the problems each of the four parties has with the current mood of anti-politics (hat-tip John Rentoul). Its introduction summarises its argument: How and why do political parties struggle to 'get' anti-politics? They all nod in speeches and policy statements in the direction of public disenchantment with politics but fail to take tackling its causes seriously. UKIP seek to exploit it, the Tories want to wish it away, Labour under Miliband claim innocence and ineptness in their defence, while the Liberal ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice

The Daily Mirror wins our Headline of the Day Award. Reader's voice: It's not your usual sort of story, is it? Liberal England replies: No, but it gives me an excuse to use this picture.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Continuing my WW1 theme for 2014 Visit the Lydiate Parish Council web site – see link above – for more information. Sheila and I went along to see and hear this today. It was very well done with the short audio plays being very emotional and descriptive. Lydiate Parish Arts Group had also joined in and their pieces of artwork were displayed around the room. Some excellent work here. Well worth the visit. The visit to Lydiate Village Centre by the project finishes tomorrow Friday 19th September. Here are a few shots I took whilst there – click on ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus
Thu 18th
13:18

The two Scotlands

Yes, I know, it's almost too late to comment on Scottish independence - they're voting today. I suspect that the result, whatever it is, won't be the end of the debate, so I'm having another shot at it. It is interesting, watching the news coverage, how much of the Yes case is bound up with anger about what might be broadly termed 'inequality'. This is the sense I get from the vision of Two Scotlands. It isn't so much the haves and the have-nots, but it is about different beliefs about how the have-nots might eventually have. The financial elite ...

Posted by David Boyle on The Real Blog
Thu 18th
12:52

The missing

You may have recently seen a post here that's now disappeared. That's because I buggered up the scheduling for a post that isn't meant to appear until after 10pm, so if you did see it pretend you haven't until then.

Posted by Nick on What You Can Get Away With
eUKhost

Firstly, Calderdale Local Party has it's policy working group meeting to consider amendments to motions this Saturday. If you have an amendment to a motion that you need support for, email it through to me or Alisdair and we'll put it in front of PWG for consideration for our support. The other thing that will happen at PWG is that we will consider our OWN amendments. There are several motions that I have an eye on for some minor tweaking (and probably some of the things I am thinking of will be accepted as drafting amendments by the submitters of ...

[IMG: Unemployment falls once again] I've brought together "claimant count" statistics for Shepway and Dover Local Authorities for 2014, 2013 & 2012 in the chart below. [Update 18 September 2014] To the end of 2013, I'd used the BBC website economy tracker at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117 but that source now seems to have disappeared. I have therefore changed to using the raw statistics from the ONS website monthly "Regional Labour Market: JSA01 - Claimant Count for Local and Unitary Authorities" releases. There were some marginal differences in figures (mainly percentage claimant counts rather than the number) between that and the BBC figures. ...

Posted on Tim Prater

There does appear to be a huge amount of confusion about this in various parts of the internet, so I'm going to break it down into almost patronising component parts. What Free Speech is:Free Speech means that you are free to say whatever you like, and so is everybody else. Free Speech only works if everyone has it. If one person is free to say what they like but others are prevented from doing so then it's not really free. What Free Speech isn't:Free Speech means that you are free to say whatever you like: it does not mean that ...

Local growth deals are a good thing. Of course they are. How could they not be? Now what are they again? The mechanics of government finance never cease to amaze or bore. But we do need to care because when it comes to devolution, it's a question of 'follow the money'. There are in fact, according to a Local Government Association report last week, 124 funding streams for local growth and regeneration. These are spread across 20 Government departments and agencies and account for a total of £22 billion, all to be spent in your local area on your local ...

Posted by Chris White on Liberal Democrat Voice
Thu 18th
10:22

Phone Scotland

Connect is back on. So those of you wanting to help the No Campaign knock up there a VPB code for knocking up in Scotland today called: Scottish Referendum Polling Day KU (Day) that you should have access to. If you're not yet a Connect User follow these instructions from the LDHQ website [...]

Tom Bradby isn't enjoying covering the #IndyRef. This may be the new normal (tags: ) Three graphs showing why climate action is good for the economy (tags: ) candidates for lib dem party presidency asked for their views on race matters by @brolesholloway (tags: ) The reality of complaining about inaccuracies in a newspaper (tags: ) Holly and @stealthmunchkin have caught the independence bug "I realise that I am not eligible to vote in this election, but I'm English so naturally thought you'd appreciate knowing what I think even though it's your election." made me crack myself laughing (tags: ) ...

The Echo has the unfolding story – see link above:-

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus
Thu 18th
09:45

Snowback

[IMG: Meatpacking] After I lost my job at the strip club, I almost immediately got myself another form of employment, this one very different to sitting around all day chatting rubbish on a microphone while deadbeats watched naked women writhe. This job involved working on the line at a meat packing plant. If you've never done such work, you cannot begin to imagine how grotesque it is. Making sure slabs of dead animal find their way to the correct incision instrument is a fast track to being desensitised to almost everything. Within days of working my first shift, food no ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

It is strange to see the leader of a party with a longstanding commitment to a Federal UK start talking about stopping Scottish MPs voting on English matters at Westminster, but that is precisely what Nick Clegg did yesterday. It is almost as if the Liberal Democrats leader has missed the point, that you cannot sort out Home Rule for Scotland without putting Wales, England and Northern Ireland on the same footing. And yet, from what I know of Nick Clegg that cannot be the case. Is he deliberately trying to antagonise his allies in the other nations of the ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

Last night at Sefton Council's Planning Committee two important decisions were made and from my perspective both were very much the right decisions. Firstly, an application to build on Green Belt land in Melling Civil Parish right up to the boundary with Aintree Village Civil Parish was firmly rejected. The land under threat (to build 100 houses upon) is bounded by the M57 Motorway, The River Alt and Spencers Lane. A map detailing where this site is located is below:- [IMG: The site is the upside down triangle just below the middle of this map right next to the M57 ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

St Albans Liberal Democrat group has condemned as 'grossly misleading' the Conservative press release issued by the district council which claims that the cost of reversing last year's car parking increase would be £1.6 million. Lib Dem leader Chris White said: 'I have the cabinet papers in front of me. The total cost of all possible options comes to £1.594 million. This comprises a menu of possibilities, some of which, eg removing the Sunday car parking charge in the civic centre's own car park, come only to £13,000. 'The larger figures in the menu have been provided by NCP, which ...

Posted by chriswhite on Chris White

It's the day we've all been waiting for.Well, those of us in Scotland at least (and I know a few highly interested English-based observers, too).It's referendum day. Or, as I prefer to call it, democracy day.It's a day to decide Scotland's future.Of course it won't all be decided by how we vote. But in voting Yes or No, Scotland will give its politicians a mandate to shape a new future.Personally, I'm taking a long-term view, and voting in the way I think is in the best interests of Scotland's future. I want my daughter, in 20 years time, be living ...

Posted by Andrew on A Scottish Liberal

Let's focus on the positives, whatever the outcome of today's events in Scotland. Today is the first UK election in which 16 and 17 year olds have been able to vote. That itself should be a cause for celebration. socialise this: [IMG: add 'To be on the positive side....' a Del.icio.us] [IMG: add 'To be on the positive side....' a digg] [IMG: add 'To be on the positive side....' a Stumble Upon] [IMG: add 'To be on the positive side....' a FaceBook] [IMG: add 'To be on the positive side....' a Twitter]

Posted by Gareth on Gareth Epps

There is a news story today that there has been a rise in teenage hospital admissions for eating disorders. In most other weeks we have stories screaming 'Teenagers are fat' 'children are fat' ' children are all going to die before their parents' 'obesity time bomb' and my personal favourite 'more people die from obesity than malnutrition' All of this accompanied by the poking, prodding and hectoring of children with accompanying letters to the parents of young children shaming them for bringing up little porkers. And all the while The trend line for obesity is not rising. Now could it ...

Posted by Carl Minns on Carl Minns - Thoughts from Hull

My own position remains unchanged from February: "If I were a Scot with a vote in September, I'm not sure which side I would favour. I see no reason why an independent Scotland wouldn't do quite well out of new arrangements, but it would of course be a risky venture into the unknown (which is why I don't think the SNP's bid will succeed). As that great liberal Ludovic Kennedy once rhetorically asked, "I still believe that if Denmark can run its own affairs, why can't Scotland?"" The debate has been depressing: I don't actually mean the acrimony between the ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice

Scotland votes Yes or No to independence today. Here are two predictions. The first, pretty well agreed, is that the the turnout is likely to be over 80%, a level not reached in general elections in the UK as a whole since the early 1950s, and a staggering increase on the 2001 election, when the turnout dipped below 60%. The reason is fairly obvious: the vote actually counts and every Scottish voter must feel that how they vote will affect the outcome. Compare that with our general elections, when, with our simplistic first past the post electoral system the outcome ...

Posted by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal
Thu 18th
01:30

Vote for Change

As decision day looms I've decided to put down some of my thoughts and to explain why I want my friends, family and compatriots to vote "No" tomorrow. The vote itself has been a long time coming: arguments over the question, timing and prospectus have come and gone (and in some cases come again.) At the end of it, though, we have come down to this: an engaged electorate, an impassioned debate and a vote that, whatever the bookies say, is too close to call. Viewing it from a distance, both frustrated and relieved at not being more directly involved, ...

Posted by Andrew Brown on the widow's world