But I do, however, *feel* like death. I've had a horrible respiratory infection since last Sunday (which I first just thought was my lungs not coping with my family's smoking), which I'm still not properly over, and I've been at my in-laws' since Tuesday, when I've not been left to myself long enough to actually [...]
[IMG: Politics Home headline change]
January I wrote about Sarah Teather and her magic carpet: "Whatever its motivation, a decision to walk away from party politics voluntarily is rarely the sign of a bad person." The Coalition's Annoyance Bill annoyed me, but at least I discovered the site of Leicester's first railway station - see the picture below. Liberal England reached the milestone of 10,000 posts. I published a guest post remembering childhood days among the lead-mining waste of Snailbeach: "The white hillocks presented endless scope for playing. Can't have been very healthy when you think about it!" Mike Hancock's worrying attitude to human rights ...
All photographs taken this afternoon.
Paddington is hilarious, charming and assertive in its politics. It tells a better story about being British than any politician has. Writing about Paddington poses a challenge. How does one discuss such a political film without losing sight of the fact that it's a hugely fun children's film? My solution is to do a mini-review [...]
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 404th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (21 -27 December, 2014), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. How the Greens will do in ...
Have you seen her?
Keeping with my policy of only adopting useful ways of promotion years after everyone else has done, I now have a Facebook Page for this blog. You can like it and hopefully get updates of when there are new posts and, of course, to show yourself to have a certain level of taste and discernment in your choice of blogs to read. Of course, there are still lots of other ways to find out if I've posted something new – following me on Twitter or Google+, subscribing via email using the little box at the top right, via the RSS ...
[IMG: Gareth Wilson and Paddy Ashdown] Occasional Liberal Democrat Voice contributor Gareth Wilson has been selected to fight George Osborne in his home constituency of Tatton in May. He is seen here with Paddy Ashdown at Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow. Gareth lives in Mobberley in the constituency and recently successfully led a campaign which defeated an attempt to build an unsustainable large housing development. On his selection, Gareth said: I'm delighted I've been given this opportunity to represent the residents of Tatton. I have lived in and around the area for the majority of my life and it is ...
View image | gettyimages.com The new version of the Electoral Commission's code of conduct is now out. As ever there is some controversy over both the principle and the details. I'm sympathetic to the principle of having a code that parties sign up to as it can be both more detailed and more flexible than relying solely on legislation, whilst also giving political campaigners more certainty than relying on the police and CPS discretion. It's been right that the Liberal Democrats have signed up to it in all previous years and that, for example, the English Party has made it ...
Saturday: There's one central idea here done superbly well: the Master is just doing all this to get her friend back. Alex once wrote a piece - one I fully endorse - titled "The Time Lords are Gits and Always Have Been", chronicling their use and abuse of arbitrary power from "The War Games" on. And suddenly, watching this, I realised that it's the Doctor who is the fallen Time Lord, not the Master. The Master, Missy, just wants him to see that they are supposed to be ruling the cosmos and then he'll come back and play with her ...
Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we're bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here's today's offering... Rochester & Strood by-election: Ukip win, Lib Dems lose 11th deposit – Stephen Tall | Fri 21st November 2014 For the Lib Dems... well, we've been here before, haven't we? Ten times before, to be precise: that's the number of lost deposits we've racked up so far. At £500 a pop it's one other way the Lib Dems are slowly helping to slow down the spiralling national debt. We were never serious players in this by-election. Everyone knew it, ...
View image | gettyimages.com Former British Ambassador (and previous Liberal/Lib Dem member) Craig Murray has been knocked back by the SNP in his attempt to stand for them because, according to his account, he wasn't willing to say 'yes' in reply to a question about whether in a hung Parliament he'd be willing to vote for the Bedroom Tax if that was part of a deal to secure other SNP policies. He was rejected for "lack of commitment to group discipline". Over on Lib Dem Voice, Caron Lindsay has written about the light this throws on the SNP's adjustment to ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-30616287 [IMG: _irf3776-11_thumb] The BBC has the story on its web site. What kind of low life does this?
Feminist pop from 1964. Lesley Gore was kept from number one in the US by the Beatles, but this single was not a hit in the UK. This performance is taken from the concert film TAMI Show.
[IMG: 7 ver 4 full] Many thanks to the 13,600 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Jo Swinson attacks gender stereotyping of toys and is attacked by Jeremy Browne (90 comments) by Caron Lindsay What does Alex Salmond think he's playing at? (31 comments) by Caron Lindsay The polls in 2014: what they show with 133 days left til 7 May 2015 (27 comments) by Stephen Tall Study shows that voters in Liberal Democrat seats trust their MPs more (41 comments) by The Voice Tim Farron on Murnaghan: "There is massive space ...
Sun 28th
11:42
Caroline Pidgeon writes... URGENT! Five minutes of your time could help ensure firearm licence fee c...
Feeling slightly restless between Christmas and New Year? Are you one of those people who just can't keep away from their computer or device? Fed up of the constant emails about sales?! Well if your answer yes to any of these questions – and the fact that you are even reading this article suggest you might – then I have a suggestion for something to do. Why not quickly complete a Home Office consultation on the issues of firearm licence fees? Yes you read that correctly. The consultation ends at the very end of Monday 29th December (I didn't set ...
As we move into 2015 the newspapers have already started to speculate as to who will be running for the office of US President. This also gives me the opportunity to indulge in one of my hobbies, following US politics. Jeb Bush has already announced that he is running for the Republican nomination, whilst Hilary Clinton is favourite to head the Democratic ticket. However, as the Observer relates there is another woman who many would like to draft in to run as the Democrat nominee, namely Elizabeth Warren: Warren's path was more fraught with difficulty. Her family - whom she ...
This post from Alex Harrowell on the travails of UKIP candidate selection and this post on Conservative Home about the five different types of UKIPper (itself a variation on Alex's 'Three UKIPs' idea) got me thinking before Christmas, and for once those thoughts remain coherent after it. Whether you think there are three, five, seven or ninety-five of them, it's clear that UKIP does now have a set of factions within it, even if none of them are formally organised. That's not unusual for a party of its size and is perhaps inevitable for a party with rapid growth and ...
For those people still trying to understand the perverse history of the Great British Pubco Scam, Good Beer Guide editor Roger Protz has written a comprehensive history of the rise of the pubco here. Good holiday reading. He also warns of the likelihood that these parasitic companies will mutate in order to survive. Somewhat disappointingly, though, the extent to which the pubco scam has shut thousands of good community pubs (like this one I drove past yesterday) it underplayed. Having won a fantastic victory on pubco reform to strengthen the changes Lib Dem Ministers were able to agree in coalition, ...
View image | gettyimages.com The Liberal Democrat Federal Conference Committee (FCC) is reasonably trying to tighten up the rules over who can qualify for the heavily discounted 'party bodies' rates for fringe meetings and exhibitions stands at federal party conferences. But its current draft proposals includes some rather surprising bans. You can read the proposed set of rules in full below, and you'll see its heart is in right place: 'party bodies' discounts should be for groups of Liberal Democrats, not for external organisations looking for a cheap way out of paying full commercial rates. It's good too that the ...
Sun 28th
09:27
Who will be the next leader of the Conservative Party? All of the candidates and the odds on each of...
The next leadership contest within the Tories could happen as soon as four and a half months from now. Even at its latest, it's only a little over two years away, given the timeline Cameron himself has outlined. So it seems to me that getting to grips with who might feature in that race and guessing who might come out on top is timely indeed. For those not aware, should the next Conservative Party leadership election happen in 2015, 2016 or 2017, it will revolve around one concept completely: the party inserting itself so far up its collective derriere it ...
Over the next few days, we are looking month by month at the year that's coming to an end. What were we all thinking about in February? 6th February saw #timetotalk, an initiative by Time to Change to get everyone talking about mental health. Liberal Democrat Voice took part with a series of moving and powerful posts as people shared their own experience. Eleanor Draycott wrote about what it's like to live with Bi-Polar Disorder and the pain inaccurate assumptions about her illness causes her: One of the most common misconceptions about people with Bi-polar, as with any other mental ...
Cheapass Games chart on how much you should donate if you like their free games is genius We played an ancient copy of Witch Trial, from the days before downloadable .pdfs, last night and it was lots of fun. (tags: ) 25 Women in Science Worth Promoting (tags: ) Shop-floor bullies ought to pay some respect - I agree with this whole heartedly (tags: ) Norman Baker reveals drugs proposals Theresa May stripped from report (tags: ) Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer (tags: ) Why we're still feeling economic pain despite the recovery (tags: ) Authoritarian angry she ...
Further to my recent update about the overflowing recycling at the Pennycook Lane recycling centre, I have now received the following update from the City Council's Recycling Projects Team Leader : "I can confirm that the Pennycook Lane Recycling Centre overflowing bin has been emptied. We believe this to be a one-off incident. However, I have instructed a member of my team to monitor the site twice weekly to assess whether the collection frequency is indeed adequate."
Just look what we have lost. [IMG: rsz_north_eastern_railway_tiled_map] Above is a photo of a part of one of the famous North Eastern Railway tiled maps which now is preserved at the National Railway Museum in York. This part of the map covers the Sefton/West Lancs area and Preston. The most obvious rail loss is the line from Southport to Preston. You could not imagine it being closed now if it had survived the Beeching era. Just think how it could be helping the Southport economy by bringing visitors to the Town and how it would assist in getting students between ...
Thanks to Maghull Town Council staff for recently cleaning up the Town boundary sign on the A59 near to Switch Island. Sadly it had been covered in graffiti by some low life and needed restoring. Within a day of my reporting the problem the graffiti was cleaned off. Well done to Peter Taylor and his Facility staff.
"I'm so glad you caught the excitement of yoghurts in 1969."So says someone from the floor in this question-and-answer session on Victoria Wood's That Day We Sang. Well, in 1969 and even a year or two before that, I can remember choosing a yoghurt from the milk float for my breakfast before I went to school. We were all over yoghurts, my family.
