Fri 21st
22:13

Thanks!

It's been a good week all in all – as Tuesday's tremendous and game-changing Commons vote to give tied publicans a Market Rent Only option to allow them to trade freely shows. Despite some predictably ridiculous scaremongering spin from the failed pubco lobbyists, many journalists were able to see right through it. I got a touching mention on the odd webpage, and then the Government confirmed the relatively obvious – that it couldn't overturn the will of the House of Commons. The singleminded determination of Greg Mulholland and the rest of our team has been an absolute joy, although the ...

Posted by Gareth on Gareth Epps

Well, after a very long night and a couple of hours snatched sleep I thought I'd write about what the heck happened yesterday. Firstly the UKIP victory in the Parliamentary By-election. To be honest it was no big surprise. A month ago when it was announced there was a belief that it was all flash in the pan and that Mark Reckless would be handed an embarrassing defeat at the hands of his former masters or even Labour. As the time has gone on the amount of UKIP activists, doners and support has grown (or been bussed in) and Rochester ...

Posted by Chris Sams on The Ginger Liberal from Medway

The 13th November saw Viki Sanders win a seat on Cambridge City council in Queen Edith's ward, following a gain for the Liberal Democrats from Labour. Cambridgeshire County Councillor Amanda Taylor, who volunteered during the campaign, has written the following summary of the campaign victory. The situation On 30th September Cambridge City Council announced a [...]

Posted by Michael Powell on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

[IMG: Libby - Some rghts reserved by David Spender] The Lib Dems have this evening announced the results of the elections to its Party Committees as voted for by conference representatives. Congratulations to all elected; commiserations to those who weren't. The lists of those elected (and not), ordered by first preference votes, follows... Federal Executive Places: 15, Total valid vote: 677 Caron Lindsay 59 Neil Fawcett 57 Kavya Kaushik 43 Ramesh Dewan 38 Gordon Lishman 33 James Gurling 31 Candy Piercy 28 Evan Harris 28 Keith House 23 Dawn Barnes 23 Pauline Pearce 21 Jonathan Fryer 21 Sue Doughty 20 ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice
Fri 21st
19:25

FCC - we nearly made it

The results are in for the Lib Dems internal committee elections, held once every two years. Thank you so much to everyone that supported me, but this time it wasn't quite enough. Of the 12 people elected to the new FCC, seven were on it last time, four lost election to it in 2012 and one (Mary Reid) was a new candidate. The new committee has plenty of experience - two ex-MPs, several ex-Councillors and the rest committee veterans. It's disappointing and frustrating to see candidates that campaigned on radical (and much needed) reform of how the committee operates losing ...

[IMG: Thank You chocolate. Image courtesy of http://www.krausescandy.com] The results are out for the Federal Committee elections, and I've been re-elected to the Federal Policy Committee – thank you – and in the first round no less – double thanks! Great to see so many brilliant colleagues elected to the committees, including five of the six I highlighted before. Extra commiserations to Cara Jenkinson for coming so close standing for the first time for Federal Conference Committee but not quite making it. Download this file Download this file Download this file Download this file Download this file

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Fri 21st
18:00

Friday favourite 138

At last an African charity single this blog can endorse:

Posted by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone

Bill Drummond: the five lessons I learned from Ken Campbell – Some memories of the 70s and the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool's production of Illuminatus! No sign yet of a solution to the shambles within the Tory ranks – Peter Oborne questions why the Tory equivalent of the Bennites are given such leeway by the party. Freedom of speech and the right to protest – James Graham on how the latest 'you're oppressing my right to be an arsehole!' kerfuffle is actually freedom of speech in action. Alternate Universe What Ifs? – Parts of XKCD responses from other universes. ...

Posted by Nick on What You Can Get Away With

Three principal council by-elections were fought yesterday alongside the Parliamentary contest in Rochester & Strood. In Stockport, the Conservatives held on to their seat in Bramhall South & Woodford despite a hard fought campaign by the Liberal Democrat team. Polling day saw many volunteers from across the Greater Manchester area descend on the Stockport MB [...]

Posted by Michael Powell on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

I've mapped the May 2014 London local elections with constituency boundaries: Each ward is coloured according to the party of the candidate with the greatest share of the vote. In London local elections, three councillors are elected for each ward, so some are split. You can see how our support has moved back since the previous local elections but most of the wards we won are in constituencies we hold. We won the majority of wards in Carshalton & Wallington, Sutton & Cheam and Twickenham. We won six wards in Kingston to the Conservatives' five and Labour's one. We won ...

YouGov
Fri 21st
16:27

Rochester and UKIP

Of course, they're not, because they are a party of government and the junior partner in the coalition. What is happening to the Lib Dem vote is highly predictable and no surprise - look at countries like New Zealand where coalition politics is the norm and see what happens to the junior partners. As a number of people have mentioned this morning on Twitter, at least we know who are core, against all the odd, support is in Rochester - all of whom have shown enough commitment to make them excellent members! So, looking at Liberal Democrat history to provide ...

Posted by Jo Christie-Smith on Jo Christie-Smith

You might well ask, "what has Emily Thornberry got to do with Liverpool?" The answer, mercifully, is very little! However what you can see in Liverpool is the sort of contemptuous attitude that she and people like her have for ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

What do you get when you have a well known local political face gets beaten in an internal vote by a man who no-one has heard of and is clearly playing at politics? You get fall out. That is what you get. Some hurt feelings maybe but maybe just some wounds to let heal but no, oh no, this isn't what has happened here in Southend and the local UKIP party and it is all out covil war. Recently I have been sitting back on the political scene, certainly locally. I didn't expect to still be living here by the ...

Posted by neilmonnery on The Rambles of Neil Monnery
Fri 21st
15:46

Speaking money

[IMG: Howtospeakmoney] Yesterday evening the Festival of Economics 2014 kicked off with the author John Lanchester in conversation with Izabella Kaminska of the FT. Lanchester, who is promoting his book How to speak money, had some very interesting and important things to say about the language of finance. His key point was that the fact most people don't understand or engage with the language and practices of finance has consequences. It means that bankers and economists are able to get away with obfuscation and mystification in order to hide their own ignorance or render opaque activities of very questionable social ...

Posted by admin on Alex's Archives

On Friday 7 November 2014, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) launched a 12 week consultation with passengers and stakeholders on the proposed off peak timetable which will be introduced in December 2015 to pave the way for the new expanded Thameslink network of 2018. Details of the proposed changes can be found on www.southernrailway.com and on www.thameslinkrailway.com/about-us/news You will [...]

Posted by chriswhite on Chris WhiteChris White

The Guardian and other outlets are reporting that the new anti-terror bill to be published next week will include a power to force individuals subject to TPIMs to relocate within the UK, subject to a restricted definition of terrorism and a higher burden of proof. Nick Clegg has conceded that the new counter-terror bill to be published next week will include a power to force terrorism suspects to relocate to another part of Britain, dropping previous opposition to the measure. But the Liberal Democrats say they have secured further changes to the existing system of terrorism prevention and investigation measures, ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

The post Why This New Tikker Watch Is Controversial appeared first on James Taylor.

Posted by James Taylor on James Taylor

Emily Thornberry resigned her role as Shadow Attorney General, after sending out a rather patronising tweet from the Rochester campaign trail. The incident says a lot about the current state of the Labour Party. Thornberry tweeted image of white van and union flags Snap was seen as patronising Ed Miliband reportedly furious Emily Thornberry resigned [...]

Posted by Charlotte Henry on Charlotte Henry
Fri 21st
14:05

Cardiology November 5

Report to Orthopaedic Surgeryfrom Cardiovascular Services: He developed angina towards the end of 2013 precipitating an angiogram which was performed in April 2014, This showed patent grafts [including a patent LIMA graft to the LAD, patent RIMA to the marginal system, patent vein grafts to the diagonal and right coronary arteries]. Overall, this was a reassuring angiogram and means that no myocardial revascularisation was indicated. From the point of view of elective orthopaedic surgery, [there is] significant co-morbidity and his operatve risk will be influenced by that. From the coronary point of view however he is very stable and already ...

Posted by Eric Avebury on Eric Avebury

Grants and funding available for community, charity and voluntary groups across Stockport for November 2014.

eUKhost

We've reported recently on a number of improvements around Gatley station funded by the Government's Cycle City funding, including wider pavements and the sorting out of the flooding problem at the junction of Oakwood Avenue and Gatley Road. One thing we wanted to see was decent cycle parking at Gatley station, but as the land is owned by Network Rail it wasn't in the gift of the Council to do it. We've now been told that there is agreement between the Council, Network Rail and TfGM to install a covered cycle parking facility at Gatley Station, hopefully next Spring. We're ...

[IMG: new cheadle crossing] We all talk about places that are an "accident waiting to happen" from time to time, but there are places where an accident has happened. The new crossing on Cheadle High Street (half way between the George & Dragon and Sainsbury's) aims to make one of the most dangerous places in Cheadle safer. We consulted on it a couple of years ago as part of the overall plan to improve Cheadle village and it got strong public support, so we're very pleased to see the crossing go into operation and start being used for people to ...

More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe:

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30138390 You have to laugh. Seems the errant lady car driver meets her match when by-standers pick up her car and removed it from tram lines! How did she not realise where she had left her car?

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton FocusSefton Focus

Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry has resigned from the front bench over a tweet from Rochester which shows, at best, a gulf of understanding between the Labour front bench and working class "white van man". Image from #Rochester pic.twitter.com/rOjTgpskmF — Emily Thornberry MP (@EmilyThornberry) November 20, 2014 Just a gaffe? Yes. But gaffes can reveal deeper truths. The mask has slipped. I like to think Liberal Democrats don't leap to judgements about people so readily, but it is something we have to prove. And as for the Conservatives – if one of them had done this it would be plebgate ...

Posted by Joe Otten on Liberal Democrat Voice

Twitter has claimed yet another casualty today with the news that the Shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry has resigned from that position after an ill-advised post on the social networking site. The Times says that she went after posting a "derogatory" tweet showing a house draped in England flags with a white van parked outside under the heading 'Image from Rochester'. As she lives in a £3 million house in Islington herself, naturally some party members, including John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, thought she was being snooty and treating working-class voters "with contempt". Once more it is shown that as ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

Last night the Labour MP Emily Thornberry was forced to resign [IMG: Strood 2] from her role as a front-bench spokesman for her party. It is difficult to have any sympathy for her as a person – leading Labour politicians are utterly ruthless with their political rivals. But I still find the episode shocking. Her offence was to send out the tweet illustrated here. It was a picture from the streets of Rochester and Strood (Strood, in fact), where there was a by-election yesterday – won for Ukip by Conservative defector Mark Reckless. There was no comment – but because ...

Posted by Matthew on thinking liberal

I find White Van Dan interesting as he is the kind of swing voter I come across in my private life - at parties and just talking to people. I often find on the doorstep, the type of people I meet (and who want to talk) do tend to have explicit reasons why they vote certain ways, or plan to. But most people vote in General Elections, and when chatting to friends and acquaintances I find it's not always a logical decision. White Van Dan said he voted Tory at the last election but "didn't know why". I've heard that ...

Posted by Louise Ankers on From one of the Jilted Generation...

[IMG: EMLD Hustings - LD Radio] This week the Ethnic Minority Lib Dems became the first and only party AO/SAO to host a presidential hustings, with Issan Ghazni very ably chairing what for me was the most interesting of the handful of debates I've seen so far. He introduced the evening by noting that the UK is becoming ever more diverse and that our party's lack of ethnic minority representation is an existential issue. The candidates then faced a range of excellent questions covering not just diversity in the party and the failures of the government to advance race equality ...

Posted by Jonathan Brown on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: davidcameron_markreckless] Peter Bone has written an editorial for the Guardian (an interesting choice) today in which he announces first and foremost that he will not be quitting the Tories for UKIP. Now that he's said this, it is hard to believe he's going to just turn around and defect - yet. That last word there is the decisive one for Eurosceptic backbenchers, because the Rochester by-election has made me realise the calculation that's in front of them. As Bone rightly says, only another Tory led government can possibly deliver an In/Out referendum. If Cameron is Prime Minister post-May 2015, ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

And so the media circus named the Rochdale and Strood by-election comes to a conclusion. And a predictable one at that. Anyone not expecting UKIP to win here is clearly out of touch with current political reality. Firstly, it would take an exceptionally abysmal performance for a party with the incumbent MP, which has effectively called the by-election on its own terms, and with the ability to direct all its resources into the constituency to find itself on the losing side. Add to this the media presentation of the election as a straight fight between UKIP and an unpopular party ...

Posted by Andrew on A Scottish Liberal

Here's some of the articles that have caught my attention this week... Obama: 'We are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once too' | US news | The Guardian Whole heap of awesome from Obama: 'We are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once too' http://bit.ly/1zIF9St A Lanson Boy: The truth about why I resigned and the claims being made against me Alex Folkes on his resignation from Cornwall's cabinet. Its Chief Exec has serious questions to answer http://bit.ly/1t8S37B bit.ly V good from @IsabelHardman: "An opinion is not an irresistible ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Stephen Tall

Mark Reckless won his bid to be re-elected an MP under the UKIP banner last night, following his eve-of-conference defection from the Conservatives. That this wasn't at all a surprise — the swing from the Tories to UKIP was 28% — says something about the febrile dynamics of politics at the moment. Support for Labour in a seat they held until 2010 also slumped. Geoff Juby for the Lib Dems trailed in fifth place behind the Greens, having shed some nine-tenths of the party's May 2010 vote. This was Lib Dems' 11th lost deposit of the parliament. Here are the ...

Posted by Stephen Tall on Liberal Democrat Voice

The Imitation Game: inventing a new slander to insult Alan Turing (tags: ) The Womansplainer - this is a fabulous fabulous website (tags: ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

[IMG: David Evans convicted of cruelty - Cornwall Council photo] The BBC reports: A farmer who was set to stand as a UKIP candidate in Cornwall has been jailed for four months for animal cruelty. David Evans, from Week St Mary, near Bude, was also banned from keeping sheep and ordered to pay costs of £714. At Bodmin Magistrates' Court, he admitted six charges of causing suffering and improperly storing carcasses. Animal welfare officers described conditions at Evans' 40-acre holding as the worst they had seen. On 6 February, inspectors found 145 sheep in such a poor condition that they ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

The Royal Mail postbox in Roseangle has been damaged by a vehicle - see right. I have reported this to Royal Mail to request repair.

At last Wallington is going to have its own Christmas lights switch-on event. It will take place in front of Wallington Town Hall on Thursday 4th December from 5.30pm with the switch on of the Christmas Tree lights at 6pm. There will be lots of music and entertainment from the Gary Mason Drummers, local choirs [...]

Posted by jaynemccoy on Diary of a Sutton Councillor

Tomorrow - Saturday 22nd November - sees the start of the West End Christmas Fortnight, which will be launched with a Children's Lantern Making event at Blackness Library, starting at 10am. At 1pm, there will be a vintage motor cavalcade in the West End shopping areas, in conjunction with Dundee Museum of Transport. Kindly sponsored by Barnetts Motor Group, the cavalcade of vintage vehicles will proceed along Perth Road, Nethergate, West Port and Blackness Road. Also on Saturday : Dundee West Church's Christmas Coffee Morning takes place in the church - 10am to 12 noon - enter from 132 Perth ...

I have commented previously (see link below) on the problems that the Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle is facing with so many empty retail units. Well things they may be a changing as new owners have appeared and clearly they have refurb' plans. We must hope for an upturn in the fortunes of this important shopping centre. [IMG: This display board effectively stops access to the areas where there were few if any shops still, open as well as giving hope of a better future of course.] This display board effectively stops access to the areas where there were ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton FocusSefton Focus

Sad to see that gun crime incidents in Sefton are still taking place of the type that Maghull suffered from in the Mad March of 2013. I would like to see our Merseyside Crime and Policing Commissioner Jane Kennedy say clearly and publicly what is being done to rid the streets of Sefton (and indeed Merseyside) of gun crime because these incidents keep on happening on a regular basis particularly in the south of the Borough.

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton FocusSefton Focus

Welsh Liberal Democrat AM Eluned Parrott has urged the Welsh Government to create a Welsh Music Education Strategy. Eluned Parrott challenged the Welsh Education Minister in the Assembly Chamber as Rhondda Cynon Taff Council are holding a consultation on cutting their schools' music service in favour of a privatised service. There are fears that cuts to music services could also place the National Youth Orchestra of Wales under threat, if the county music education system falls apart. Eluned Parrott, the Welsh Liberal Democrat AM for South Wales Central, said: "Wales was the first country in the world to have a ...

Posted by Freedom Central on Freedom Central