Let us remember Patrick Macnee with the sexiest, most stylish opening titles ever.
The BBC News Suffolk page wins Headline of the Day.
Sir Clive Loader, Leicestershire police and crime commissioner, is suffering from severe back pain and will have to step down from the role for a while. I wish a swift and full recovery. But his plight has displayed a weakness of the PCC system: who takes his place? The Leicester Mercury explains: Under the law the police and crime panel must appoint an acting commission - for a maximum of six months - from a member of his staff.However, the panel was not keen on the idea: Sir Clive asked the panel to pick Paul Stock, the chief executive of ...
So the Northern Powerhouse did not survive for even two months after the general election. The electrification of the Trans-Pennine railway line between Leeds and Manchester has been put on hold. So too has the electrification of the Midland main line between Bedford and Sheffield. Much work towards this has already taken place. The photograph above shows a bridge at Kibworth being raised and the one below shows the Network Rail track measurement train, which has been frequently seen on the line in recent months. Chris Hobson from the East Midlands Chamber told the Leicester Mercury: "The Chamber is extremely ...
I can't recall a case across England where this has occurred before. The Bromfield solar farm has been approved without a single protest or objection. We have recently seen lively and well organised protests against solar farms at Whitton, Henley Hall, Acton Scott and Sheriffhales. Although the latter two had a measure of local support, [...]
[IMG: images] With thanks to my old chum Roy Connell for pointing this posting (see link above) out to me on Cllr. Sue McGuire's Cambridge Ward Focus. It is a powerful message indeed and from a young person of 15 all the more so.
Lord B. explains the consequences of one of the Liberal Democrats' wheezes for wringing money out of us during the general election campaign. How long ago it all seems! Grant dines with Cleese, Cleese with Grant The bigwigs in the party were very pleased with themselves when they came up with the wheeze of offering the prospect of dinner with John Cleese or Hugh Grant to encourage members to donate money to the general election campaign. The idea was that anyone making a donation would be entered into a draw and the winner would get to break bread with one ...
The advantage of sitting through and watching far too many leadership hustings is seeing the common patterns. One of which is about what (usually) does not get mentioned. The economy for one thing. Or the people most likely to vote. Both Farron and Lamb regularly talk of a need to enthuse young people (record of voting at elections: low). But not about any need to win over pensioners (record of voting at elections: high). Or the strategic dilemma the party faces about how much to talk about the past, something which is one of the party's most important decisions to ...
Thu 25th
18:50
Claiming Tim Farron isn't a 'strong liberal voice' is only possible if you don't have a clue what li...
[IMG: Tim-Farron-007] Ian Birrell is one of the Guardian's occasional Token Tory commentators, and someone not averse to churning out a bit of clickbait when required. So it should be no surprise that just as ballot papers are going out in the Liberal Democrat leadership, he pops up with a hit piece on Tim Farron. Some of it is banally predictable, with rehashed attacks seemingly borrowed from dodgy phone polls about Tim's stance on LGBT rights and abortion. Rather than go into detail on those issues, I'll just point out that you can find out Tim's positions on those in ...
They were the size of turkeys, had the brains of ostriches and probably could have been fought off with a good kick. I'm pretty clearly in a minority on Jurassic World. Audiences seem to be lapping it up; it's box office taking currently exceeds the GDP of Gambia by several hundred million dollars. Nonethless, I felt it's human [...]
Unhappy Focus Team members outside the site that developers want to put housing on It's not often that a company makes front page newspaper headlines (in the wrong way) two weeks running, but the developers of Elswick Park have done just that. First they were up in court for not complying with requirements of their planning permission to carry out landscaping works. They got off with a conditional discharge (that's legal language for a rap over the knuckles) because they suddenly rushed in and planted some trees at the wrong time of year - they'll probably die. Why didn't they ...
Thu 25th
17:04
Tim Farron's speech to the IPPR: Liberalism: an optimistic confidence in the capacity of people to m...
Both Liberal Democrat leadership candidates are giving speeches to the IPPR think tank over the next few days. Here is Tim Farron's in full. IPPR has always been one of the leading think tanks on the progressive wing of British politics. I welcome the interest you've shown in Liberalism, and I hope that in the next few years you will further develop the arguments in your 2007 book on Liberalism, Beyond Liberty. Now let me be frank. The election on May 7th was an utter disaster for the Liberal Democrats. In terms of our vote and number of MPs we ...
Kent County Council Trading Standards have received a number of reports of a scam involving residents in Kent receiving mail claiming that the resident has won £825,000 in the Peoples Post Code lottery. [IMG: Money] The mail states that to claim the prize money, the resident should ring a telephone number listed in the mail. When the resident rings the given number, they are asked to pay a release fee which can be anything between £200 and £4,000. Trading Standards advise: This letter has all the hallmarks of a prize draw scam. If you haven't entered a lottery, you won't ...
Norman Lamb was quicker off the mark during the Liberal Democrat leadership race with plans for reforming the way the party operates, especially with his idea (subsequently also backed by Tim Farron) that the party should open up its Deputy Leader to election by all MPs and with candidates not restricted to MPs. Lamb has also been more effusive in his language about simplifying the party's committee structures – an important point given what the Morrissey Review concluded and the way the English Party's rules are about to stop working – but Tim Farron has been making up ground with ...
This is a deferred election from 7th May due to the death of a candidate. Four seats- LD Candidates: Cheryl White, Eleas Hussain, Michael Gaze, Nick Freeman. Contact: Lewes Constituency Organiser, Zoe Russell – (01273 488749 or leweslibdems@hotmail.com)
With ballot papers in the leadership election about to hit your doormats , both candidates for the leadership of the party attended a hustings dedicated to issues of local government and local campaigning at the Manchester Local Government Conference, June 20th 2015. For those of you who could not make it we recorded it for [...]
Thu 25th
14:23
Cut backs in rail improvements – Don't cut in Merseyside and West Lancs as we have so far had ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33270586 The BBC has the story – see link above. [IMG: Site for the new Maghull North Railway Station. ] Site for the new Maghull North Railway Station. Tories have always been the Party of the private car, are they retuning to type? Will the Tories take back the money for Maghull North Station which the Coalition Government promised? Will the Skem' project get off the ground? As for Labour's carping, they invested so very little in rail upgrades when in Government and have no room to moan.
Thu 25th
13:10LibLink: Alistair Carmichael: Cameron's shocking example of self-serving politics is biggest threat ...
Alistair Carmichael has written a devastating attack on David Cameron in today's Herald, accusing him of "psychopathic ruthlessness" and of "one of the most egregious pieces of self-serving politics ever seen" in stoking up English nationalism. It's strong stuff. At 7am in the morning of September 19, following the referendum result, the Prime Minister emerged to thank the people of Scotland for sticking with one of the most successful political unions the world has ever seen and to reaffirm his commitment to its future. This was his time to tell the people of a continuing UK that he understood what ...
Wednesday: "No Income Tax, No VAT;"No Deficit, No Guarantee." Master Gideon would appear to have taken Steve Bell's gimp-suit-wearing cartoon of himself as a role model, judging by his justifiably-mocked announcements that he will be trussing himself up in legislation to stop himself doing things that he shouldn't ought to do anyway. First, during the election, he promised to pass a law to stop himself raising taxes; then, in his Mansion House speech, he said he'd make another law that he would run budget surpluses in "normal times". The fact that these two laws pull in opposite directions only adds ...
On Tuesday the Finance Minister made a statement on her budget tour, allegedly listening to stakeholders about what should be her budget priorities. Today, in response to one of my questions she sent me the itinerary. 18 June - Aberystwyth 2 July - Llandudno Junction 16 July - Cardiff 23 July - Swansea 3 August - Newtown 9 September - Llandudno Junction 10 September - Merthyr Tydfil Obviously, I am disappointed not to have received a tour T-shirt but also puzzled as to why she is going to Llandudno Junction twice.
Note from the county council This is to let you know that the public consultation on the draft Rail Strategy starts today and runs until the 4th August. It can be found, together with the questionnaire online at http://www.hertsdirect.org/railconsultation. This consultation provides an opportunity for the public, rail users and other stakeholders to comment on [...]
Nick Clegg was interviewed on LBC this morning. Some highlights: He had no idea what was coming. He thought that 20 seats would have been a bad result: He was blindsided by the exit poll and first thing he did was have a cigarette He doesn't regret for one millisecond going into government Labour in Sheffield laughed and cheered when Vince Cable lost his seat He's immensely proud at stats showing narrowing of attainment gap because of pupil premium He put defeat solely down to Tory scaremongering about SNP and SNP surge in Scotland Public have been "really generous" to ...
Sometimes in life no matter how many excuses you can provide, you have to look yourself in the mirror and say that maybe it wasn't everyone else's fault, in fact it was quite the opposite. You see as Lib Dems we often point at factors that didn't help us during the past few years, some of them are very legitimate but at some point all the excuses start to pile up and they become implausible. One excuses I would like to bring up that I believe is a significant factor in both the Lib Dems and Labour's performance in the ...
UPDATED DETAILS LD seat. Cause: Resignation. LD prospective candidate: Nichola Martin
The this week's FT Janan Ganesh suggests that those who supported Britain's entry to the Euro back in the late 1990s and early 2000s should own up to to their error and apologise for it. He feels that the arrogance of that generation of Europhiles is undermining the pro EU case as we face a referendum on membership. Well he won't have me in mind. I am not a prominent politician; I wasn't even blogging in those days. But I did have an opinion – and that was that that the country should be part of the Euro – though ...
The esteemed political journalists Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt of the Guardian have made an interesting, if long contribution to the debate about how the Liberal Democrats ended up in their current predicament. Interestingly, it says very little about the 2010-12 era when Tim Farron and Norman Lamb chaired the party's two main committees, the Federal Executive and Federal Policy Committee respectively. However, it does shed some interesting light on the internal debate on the central issue that caused the electoral catastrophe: tuition fees. The tales of what might have happened had David Laws not resigned, and why fees was ...
LD candidate- Adam Brookes. Contact details- adam.brookes@gmail.com
LD Candidate- Aubrey Oliver. Contact Details: Kevin Tillett (01432 265528, info@herefordlibdems.com)
Independent seat, cause- resignation. LD candidate- Mathew McCarthy. Contact Details: 07576 561747, mathewmccarthy@hotmail.co.uk
I wrote a blogpost a couple of days ago about new kinds of organisations emerging in the nether world between the public sector and voluntary sector. I used the Dorset Coast Forum as an example. But I've had such interesting responses that I can't resist coming back to the issue. One in particular - I haven't asked whether I can quote her so I'd better not say who it was - complained at the way that, because of the way seed funding for social enterprise works, effective new ideas tend to stay small: "You can have great results, demonstrate traction ...
This Liverpool Echo article interested me and whilst wishing the chap every success one question comes to mind. How will he get into a canoe on a canal? I have done a bit of canoeing over the years with my old mate Keith but we have raely attempted it on a canal because of the inherent difficulties of getting in and out. Canoes are quite unstable when you are anything but sat down in one so launching from say a beach is by far the preferable way. You can get in and push off and when landing can run ...
With ballot papers starting to arrive with Liberal Democrat members from today, the last 36 hours has seen a flurry of extra endorsements for Tim Farron or Norman Lamb. Lamb landed the biggest name of the batch: Paddy Ashdown. Massively popular in the party, Paddy's appointment as chair of the party's general election campaign rather embarrassingly got by far more applause than any of the policy measures Nick Clegg talked about in his conference speech announcing it. Given the general election result, some of the star power has now waned, but it is still considerable with Paddy having long since ...
Last week's full council meeting about Silver Hill is on the front page of the Hampshire Chronicle today. Here's what I said in the meeting (give or take a few words here and there): Madam Mayor Too much of our discussion this evening has been obsessed about procurement law, process, risk and profit. Forgive me, but I think we need to be obsessed about getting a better scheme for Winchester - better than the scheme we have today There has been definite progress vs. the 2014 scheme. We have a bus station. We have affordable housing - two things that ...
For those of us with an interest in social history this article in today's Telegraph is fascinating. They report on the views of Professor Robert Tombs of Cambridge University that the Black Death actually had some rather good effects for those who survived it. Professor Tombs says that although the plague killed an estimated 1.5 million people in England between 1348 and 1350, in its aftermath, with fewer people competing for work and land, living standards reached a height not matched until centuries later: Peasants had increased leisure time and freedom, so pubs became places for playing games, meeting and socialising. ...
Earlier this year, I highlighted the City Council's welcome tidying of one of the areas at the south end of the Pennycook Lane car park. To the immediate east of this was an untidy area next to the hanging baskets belonging to the local sheltered housing residents' association and I asked Blackness Primary School if it would wish to take it over to add to its gardening initiatives and the Environment Department if this would be allowed. Both agreed and I am delighted to see the school's pupils already making a difference here:
You Won't Be Able To Recognize These Modern Animals Drawn Like Dinosaurs Finally, a cat I would like to own Horrible hatchet job on @timfarron in the Grauniad. No need for such nastiness. The Most Metal Deaths In Middle Earth How the media spun the Tim Hunt story The Secret Barrister has a fabulous post for Michael Gove on pro bono work James Baker is eloquent on the proposals for Yorkshire devolution Queen to release own beer for Bohemian Rhapsody anniversary - Lager? Nooooooooooooooooo :( [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Thu 25th
07:58
Michael Howard Syndrome explained, as the Independent poll on Labour leadership throws up some inter...
The Indy has hired polling company ORB to do a survey on the Labour leadership contest. It has a large sample size at 2,000, so for those of us who are already nerdily watching the proceedings, the results were revealing. First, the more predictable stuff: Burnham is seen by the largest number of respondents as the candidate most likely to lead Labour back to government – although somewhat narrowly. Andy scored 36% to Kendall's 25%. Cooper was third on 20% with good ol' Jeremy last at 18% (Yvette narrowly missing out on the wooden spoon there). Burnham came first, I ...
For over two years, Nick Clegg owned that Thursday morning 9 am slot on LBC as he spent half an hour taking calls from the public, It was a brave thing to do and he did it really well. This morning, he's back there in what's billed as his first major interview since the election. You can watch it here and we'll certainly be discussing it later. What are his plans? Will he get involved in the EU referendum campaign? And he 's bound to be asked, as the ballot papers hit members' doorsteps, what he thinks of the leadership ...
From today's Guardian: We were the centre party and, on one level, that sounds really attractive. But the old adage of if you're in the middle of the road you might get run over operated in spades. We were in the middle of the road without any distinction, so we had no visibility jacket on, no one could see us, so we really did get run over.
