#56463140 / gettyimages.com The two liberal philosophers photographed together in about 1970.
The person isn't Andrew but I suspect he's feeling just like the chap in the photo. Excellent news from York where Andrew Waller, one of the first Liberal Democrat candidates I ever campaigned for and the man who once got me the largest bag of Smarties ever, has got back on to York Council: LIB DEM – 60.2% (+25.8) LAB – 19.6% (-23.8) UKIP – 13.3% (+13.3) CON – 3.8% (-10.0) GRN – 2.9% (-5.5) ENGLISH DEMOCRATS – 0.2% And in other news: Whissendine (Rutland): Liberal Democrat GAIN from Independent. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 16, 2014
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Conservative seat. Resignation For more information contact info@rossendalelibdems.org.uk
Conservative seat. Disqualification. For more information please contact mark.inskip@fenlandlibdems.org.uk
Independent seat. Death For more information please contact info@rutlandlibdems.org.uk
Conservative seat. Death For more information contact: cllr.susan.shotter@conwy.gov.uk
Labour seat. Death There is no Liberal Democrat candidate.
Conservative seat. Death
Conservative seat. Resignation For more information:
Conservative seat. Resignation For more information email info@rutlandlibdems.org.uk or call Grahame Hudson, Chair on 07597 920 652
Liberal Democrat seat. Death For more information see: Contact: info@yorklibdems.org.uk
Labour seat. For more information contact info@thurrocklibdems.org.uk
Labour seat. Death For more information contact: roger.hayes@bolton.gov.uk
[IMG: Jeremy Browne with beard AD LIB] Jeremy Browne's decision to stand down as MP for Taunton Deane at the next election surprised many in the party. Ed Fordham wrote a tribute to Jeremy's long service for the party on LDV here today — and the Lib Dem blogosphere has also had plenty to say. Here's a selection... Jeremy Browne MP resigns (Andrew Page) I last saw Jeremy Browne at Lib Dem conference last week, at the Glee Club – hanging around at the back, obviously detached from proceedings chatting with a couple of friends. This neatly encapsulated Browne's relationship ...
-Follow and keep in touch!Ched Evans committed a horrific crime, and it's arguable he should serve longer in prison than he eventually will. However, he should be allowed to resume his career as a footballer when he is released. Sheffield United footballer was convicted of rape and serving a prisons term Evans' club is currently [...]
Diagnosis: Bilateral cataracts, bilateral macular degeneration Visual acuity: 6/9 right eye, 6/9 left eye OCT scan showed atrophy and mild subretinal fluid at the left macula, and retinal pigment epithelium disturbance with no fluid at the right macula. Both eyes are white and quiet and lens opacities were noted bilaterally. Geographic atrophy was noted at the left macula with some subretinal fluid. Retinal pigment epithelium disturbance was noted at the right macula with patchy hyperpigmentation. No treatment is indicated at present. We have explained to him the risks and benefits of cataract surgery and the guarded prognosis due to macular ...
A planning application has been submitted to subdivide the garden of Burfield on Burway Lane, Ludlow and build a detached house (14/04422/FUL). The closing date for comments in 4 November, though in practice comments will be taken up to the point the decision is made if they raise material considerations.
[IMG: Sir-Robert-Worcester] Yes, you read that headline right: founder of MORI, Sir Bob Worcester, increased his forecast of how many seats the Lib Dems would win in May 2015 when asked for a prediction at last week's Lib Dem conference. I'll be honest, though: I don't think he meant to. Last year, you may recall he predicted the party would win 24 seats. I certainly remember: Bob Worcester forecasts Lib Dems to be reduced to 24 seats in 2015. I'll run naked down Whitehall if that's the result (17th Sept 2013). I further, erm, nailed my colours to the mast ...
The Council's Regulatory Committee by 6 votes to five has refused planning permission for 320 houses to be built on the Longbank Farm site in Ormesby. Only Labour Councillors supported the application. It's a victory for the campaign by local residents and Lib Dem Councillors to protect green areas.The Committee only gave three local residents and three councillors three minutes each to support refusal while the case in favour took 45 minutes. Ormesby Councillor and Lib Dem Group Leader Glyn Nightingale said: "It's great that our efforts working local residents has kept our area's open spaces free from totally inappropriate ...
Just a couple of trees planned for removal in the latest notification from Amey, both in the Hall Green end of the ward: 1) Opposite 522/524 Fox Hollies Road – reason given as 'Structural Integrity'. 2) Outside 54 Edenbridge Road – reason given as 'New Planting Failure'. If anyone is unhappy with these plans, please let me know quickly.
#105236397 / gettyimages.com One day soon, I hope, Douglas Brunt's novel US political thriller The Means will make a cracking TV series or movie. Reading through, there is scene after scene I can imagine being great if filmed, yet the reason my imagination wandered on to that is that so often the scenes don't come off in the book. [IMG: The Means by Douglas Brunt] The writing is rather like JK Rowling on a bad day. The descriptions are plodding, the exposition clumsy and the characterisation limited. It's not prose that would have you applauding its technical skill. It still ...
In British folk tradition blacking-up used to be known as 'niggering'. Now, of course, it has nothing whatsoever to do with that... or so the defenders of David Cameron would have us believe after the [...]
[IMG: 20141016_161511_resized] That was my deliberately provocative question asked at The Guardian / British Academy round-table on immigration I took part in last week at Lib Dem conference – reported in the paper here under the headline 'A numbers game that does not add up'. One final - and telling - point came from Stephen Tall, co-editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He asked all the members of the panel to consider whether they were indeed representative and whether they could actually understand the views of other people, from different backgrounds and parts of the country. Tall said that there was ...
The BBC have a rather disturbing website that enables you to look back through old editions of Radio Times and find out what was on TV the day you were born. I was born on a Saturday so there is a lot of sport in my case and we are talking about just the two TV channels and three radio channels. How did we cope? The highlights which my mother missed that day include Grandstand, The Range Rider, something called 'Garry Halliday' (that weeks' episode was appropriately entitled 'The Outcast'), Juke Box Jury (of course), Dixon of Dock Green, a ...
After the European Parliament elections in May, there was a scramble amongst the political groupings in Brussels to gather enough MEPs (twenty-five) from enough countries (seven) to achieve recognition as a political group, with two groups in particular, the European Conservatives and Reformist Group - ECR (which includes the Conservative Party) and the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group - EFDD (which includes UKIP) competing to attract individual MEPS to reach the required number of countries. At one point, it looked as though the EFDD would fall just short, but the recruitment of the Latvian Farmers Union MEP, Iveta ...
Acocks Green's Claimant Unemployment level fell to 750 in September. The figure was down 26 on August and down by 282 on a year ago. The level of long term unemployed in the ward bucked the trend; rising by 2 to 300, though it is still well down on the year. Meanwhile, the level of youth claimants fell by 3 to 190, which is down 74 in the past year. Nationally, unemployment fell below 2 million for the first time since 2008. The annual fall of 538,000 is the largest annual fall since records began. The numbers in work reached ...
Heads up people! There's now just two weeks to get your nominations in for people in YOUR local community "...who go out of their way to help others for a new award." Peterborough City Council launched the Civic Awards in July to recognise residents, groups, organisations and businesses who have made a real difference to their [...]
In the few days, the discussion of Russia has acquired a new dimension. The announced withdrawal of Russian forces placed close to the Ukrainian border and a slight but significant easing on the previously blood-curdling rhetoric coming from Moscow has made some people think that the crisis, fomented and largely organised by the Kremlin, may now be beginning to ease. Certainly the imposition of sanctions although it has had relatively little direct effect, has indirectly caused the government of Vladimir Putin some real problems. Western companies involved in the Russian market have radically reconsidered the risks of doing business in ...
LDHQ have launched a bulk buy deal and templates for "4S" Switch postcards LDHQ Bulk Buy deal You will provide artwork and data, and we will organise for the postcard to be printed, personalised and then mailed out. The postcard will be printed by Printech Europe and mailed out via OnePost. Price for printing and personalising 5000 postcards: £180.90 Mailing [...]
Another image from my father's collection of slides – the fishing boats in Brixham harbour, Devon, 1962. [IMG: Brixham Harbour, Devon, 1962]
#162356505 / gettyimages.com Once again, Biteback is published a series of "Why vote..." books for the general election. I turned with particular interest to the UKIP one, given Nigel Farage's public repudiation of much of his party's 2010 manifesto – using words like "drivel" and "nonsense" before promising to start with a clear sheet of paper. What has his party been putting on that blank sheet of paper? [IMG: Why vote UKIP - Suzanne Evans] However, Deputy Chairman Suzanne Evans rather skirts round this all, ending the book on a claim that her party is the one which has stood ...
Nothing like watching an ageing punk make more sense than most people who try to talk about politics. Also nice to see someone being interviewed by someone who doesn't constantly try to talk over them. "Without education you're going to be the stupid of the future. You're not voting, you're not contributing, you're not even like non-contributing, you're just demanding that you be ignored and that's not very smart at all." Love it!
[IMG: Kids school meal] As a School Governor, I received a useful briefing this morning from Kent County Council about the funding that Kent schools receive as either a maintained school or academy. Very often, an argument that is made for converting a school to Academy status is the additional funding it brings: as this briefing now shows, that is increasingly not the case. The briefing from Keith Abbott, Director of School Resources, Kent County Council said: "A number of schools have queried the level of 'top slice' and the amount of additional funding a school receives when it converts ...
Jeremy Browne, the Lib Dem MP Taunton Deane, is standing down at the next election. He has always been a divisive figure within the party. He has his fans but also plenty of detractors. I'm emphatically in the latter camp and have previously written a post calling on him to defect. My issue with him was [...]
[IMG: Jeremy Browne] So my good friend Jeremy Browne has announced he is standing down as the Member of Parliament for Taunton Deane. This announcement by him has achieved a lot of opprobrium and gnashing of teeth: 'too late', 'too soon' - what has been little reflected upon is the burden we place on our candidates and MP's. I have had the pleasure of knowing Jeremy since 1990, when we met at the University of Nottingham: the long haired, railway-signalman's cap-wearing, President of the Les Dawson Appreciation Society was a larger than life figure. Flip-flops in summer (and into autumn), ...
In the New Yorker, Silvia Killingsworth poses a food-related moral conundrum that's not often considered but should be: are octopuses too smart to eat? Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars,guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstratepersonalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink [...]
[IMG: Brighton cars] Sadiq Khan has been given the task of winning over "Green strays" and getting them to vote Labour "again". I put the words I did in quotations to reflect the way Labour tends to see this stuff; these are people who they should without doubt be winning over, in the collective mind of the party. While politically I get this mentality, it can have a damaging effect on the very mission that fuels these discussions in the first place. The task is not academic or purist either: the party internally estimates that around 17 marginal seats could ...
[IMG: resolutionfoundation] That was the question the Resolution Foundation posed at a Lib Dem conference fringe meeting in Glasgow last week. Some of what follows was inspired by (ie, copied from) IFS Director Paul Johnson's excellent LibDemVoice article, Balancing the books: some unpalatable choices, published last week. Some of it I've previously rehearsed in my ConservativeHome column, Make no mistake, these are deep and meaningful cuts - and there's more to come. Anyway, here's what I said... "The gain and the pain." I want to congratulate the Resolution Foundation on taking a glass half-full approach to the next five years. ...
Calderdale Smokers asked to QUIT or PICK UP the tab (tags: ) the moment a man with a bionic eye sees for the first time in 30 years (tags: ) All wishlists now cleared out of stuff I no longer want: Things I Want post is GO *hopeful face* (tags: ) Fancy doing art for 2000AD? (tags: ) Man with No Beard is in the lead in Beard of the Season poll. Stop this travesty and vote Moeen Ali! (tags: ) 10 Of The Best Kids' Cosplays Ever! (tags: ) Tighter immigration laws catching out long-term legal migrants (tags: ) ...
Major resurfacing works are coming up in the Hambrrok / Frenchay area. From 3 to 6 November overnight works will take place on Bristol Road, Frenchay from the Hambrook lights down to the former Frenchay Hospital entrance, and on the Hospital end of Old Gloucester Road as well. From 5 to 12 November the ring road junction at the A4174 Hambrook lights (the Winterbourne junction) will also be resurfaced. Work will take place between 8pm and 6am each night, and the roads affected will be closed overnight. South Glos say that alternative routes will be signposted, but delays will be ...
Thu 16th
09:50
Liberal Democrats Will Raise Tax-free Allowance in the First Year of the Next Parliament
[IMG: tax-lib-dems] Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced that the Liberal Democrats would raise the income tax personal allowance threshold to £11,000 in the first year of the next Parliament - a tax cut of £100 for 29m working people. We would make this change in the Autumn Statement of 2015, meaning that the tax cut would kick in in April 2016. This is the first step on the way to raising the personal allowance to £12,500 - which will put £400 back in the pockets of 30m taxpayers, as well as taking a further ...
I have always understood that the last recorded words of Roy Jenkins were: "Oh, upper middle, if you don't mind." He was in hospital and being offered some middle-brow biographies... That is a way of introducing the revolt of middle England. There is certainly something about the rage of Nigel Farage, reproduced in so many public meetings around the regions, that is frightening, something of the fierce contempt of the sidelined for sophisticated capital cities everywhere. But it raises the question: what about upper middle England? Because I have a feeling that their revolt will follow later next year. I ...
In the Financial Times today, Lib Dem blogger (turned FT leader writer) Giles Wilkes – former special adviser to Vince Cable and chief economist at liberal think-tank CentreForum – lays into the party's flagship manifesto commitment to raise the personal allowance: Giving hundreds of pounds to millions of people is rather popular. Since this is what raising the income tax threshold implies, it is no shock that both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties want it in their manifestos. Sadly it is an idea that gets worse with each passing year. A commitment to "take people out of tax" first ...
The City Council were pretty quick to get a press release out about the latest Jobseeker's Allowance figures for Peterborough, this week. I suspect that was because they've fallen to their lowest level this year? The number of claimants was 304 lower in September than in August, and has fallen by 33% since January (The [...]
[IMG: Jeremy Browne. Photo courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeremy_Browne_MP.jpg - some rights reserved] There are five points to note about Jeremy Browne's decision to stand down from Parliament at the next election: There's been some snarky comments about how late in the Parliament Jeremy Browne has left it to stand down. But remember Cambridge last time – David Howarth leaving it until late in the Parliament didn't stop Julian Huppert winning the seat. The political situation now is very different, but I've heard a fair number of senior party figures all through this Parliament take the view that the lesson from Cambridge ...
Pensioners will benefit from a 2.5 per cent increase in their state pension next year thanks to the Liberal Democrats' Triple Lock guarantee. Southport MP John Pugh has welcomed the news that figures out today (14 October) show that annual inflation is below target which means that the basic state pension will be boosted by 2.5 per cent next year. [IMG: Dr. John Pugh Lib Dem MP for Southport] Dr. John Pugh Lib Dem MP for Southport The Triple Lock guarantee, introduced thanks to the Liberal Democrats in Government, means that pensions are increased by either price inflation, earnings inflation ...
Thu 16th
07:56
Unemployment falls again in Ludlow - now we need to concentrate on the quality of jobs
Unemployment levels have more than halved in the last 18 months across the Ludlow constituency. That's very good news. Youth unemployment is falling too. And we have much lower unemployment than many areas around us and the UK as a whole. What we need to concentrate on now is the quality of jobs. Let's do [...]
This may be a bit of a stream of consciousness, penned as it was without access to links and while going through some righteous anger at the state of the UK telecoms industry. The decision of Jeremy Browne to announce with less than seven months to go that he won't be seeking re-election as an MP is significant on a number of levels. Initial reactions were all generally predictable – with one exception. Social liberals could barely disguise their joy: online comments from Browne's followers on the right were utterly despairing. Most criticised the sudden and unexplained timing, coming days ...
