The Guardian reports: David Cameron's plan to relax the foxhunting ban is likely to fail after the Scottish National party decided to take the provocative step of voting against a change in the law that only relates to England and Wales. After a meeting of its MPs in Westminster, the SNP decided it would vote down the motion even though it would only bring the law in England and Wales into line with Scotland by allowing hunts to flush out foxes with a pack of dogs before they are shot. If the vote goes ahead on Wednesday as planned by ...
The SNP have decided that they are going to vote against the efforts of the Conservative Government to relax the hunting ban in England. This is a significant departure from a self-denying ordinance traditionally adopted by their Westminster representatives, who have committed not to vote on English-only matters. That position was a principled one and perfectly reasonable for them to adopt in the aftermath of devolution, especially given their broader belief that Scotland should be in complete control of its own domestic affairs and that English and Welsh MPs should not be involved in those decisions. There is also a ...
The Spectator reports: Number 10 believes it will be able to 'square' all Tory MPs whose constituencies will be abolished or merged as part of the boundary changes, Coffee House understands. I hear from a very well-informed source that Downing Street, which is leading the work on the changes to constituency boundaries, believes that the number of Tories affected by the reduction in the number of seats from 650 to 600 is so small that they can either be accommodated with another seat where the sitting MP is likely to retire at the next election, or moved into the House ...
A bumper selection this time though, judging by the soundtrack, the compiler has taken these closures badly. Other counties are available: Devon, Bedfordshire, North Lincolnshire, East Sussex, Leicestershire, Herefordshire, Hampshire, Cumbria, Cambridgeshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Cornwall, Rutland. Northumberland, Shropshire, Suffolk and the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Alan Bennett once described Albion House, the shabby public school in his first play Forty Years On, as "a loose metaphor for England". So it is hard not to think the same about Albion Primary School in Southwark. As James Barber explains: Southwark Council is twisting the arms of Albion Primary School to sell a significant part of its site. With that money the school will be rebuilt. The rebuild will I'm sure be lovely. But the principle is alarming.He asks which state school will be the next for this treatment. I was going to end with a passage from ...
So David Cameron is "open to the idea of workers funding their own unemployment or sickness benefits privately through financial products". According to the Independent, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson told a briefing of journalists today that the Prime Minister agreed with a suggestion by Iain Duncan Smith about the role of private finance in the welfare state. "We need to support the kind of products that allow people through their lives to dip in and out when they need the money for sickness or care or unemployment," Mr Duncan Smith told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend. But then ...
You might have missed it if you weren't looking, but on Friday the Conservatives threw a bit more of our green policy out of the window, by scrapping a technical (but crucial) part of Zero Carbon Homes - allowable solutions. This measure essentially meant that developers would still be required to offset carbon emissions by paying into a green pot – even if they couldn't build new homes to Zero Carbon standards. I wrote about it here, when the measure was previously announced by Stephen Williams: "Where it would be all nigh impossible to build a carbon-tight home "on site", ...
[IMG: CJzYw4EWwAAicCx.png large] Could this be the new Labour logo?
[IMG: Lib-Dem-logo] David Howarth and Mark Pack have produced a pamphlet on how the Liberal Democrats need to adopt a core vote strategy, and what that strategy could be. There's a lot of good thinking in there, and Matthew Green's response to it is also worth reading, so I only have a couple of points to add. First up, I think any change in strategy like this needs to ensure it brings in the local parties from the start. One big problem the party has had over the past few years is that far too much campaign strategy has been ...
Presentation slides on health and social care devolution plans for Greater Manchester.
This novel won various awards including most notably the 2013 Booker Prize. I really enjoyed it - it's a story of various crimes of passion and property in an isolated New Zealand gold rush town in 1865-66, set in a somewhat splintered narrative which only gradually draws together to form a whole picture. I found the intense, detailed portrayal of the raw settler society very compelling, and in particular Catton's unsentimental depiction of lack of communication across gender and race, driven by the power structures developed and reinforced in a new(ish) society. I was less convinced by the astrological framework ...
Nick Clegg was interviewed by Andrew Marr on the Sunday Politics show yesterday. Amongst other things he discusses how PR could be a condition of any further coalition. * Mary Reid is the Monday Editor on Lib Dem Voice.
The system of UK workers paying in to a fund so that they could claim payments if they were sick, among other things, was originally created by the National Insurance Act of 1911. It's been modified since to take it from the original 'sickness benefit' to the current 'Statutory Sick Pay' system, of course, but the principle of National Insurance remains very much the same - workers pay in to an insurance scheme and receive benefits in return when they aren't working (due to sickness or unemployment). Among those who drafted the 1911 Act was one Winston Churchill, then a ...
Last weekend myself and Councillor Gary Busuttil were able to attend a lively street party in Beaumont Road. The event, where resident have their street closed off from traffic for a few hours, usually on a Sunday, was organised by Jill Ward and Vanessa Folley. Photo taken by Jill Ward It gave people a chance to meet each other, many of whom did not either know or commonly speak to their neighbours. There was a great atmosphere with lots of children playing games whilst the adults tucked into the homemade cupcakes! PlayStreet joint organiser, Jill Ward, said: "We were thrilled ...
Here is Nick's first tv interview since the election: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02wwg7f/player It's worth watching the whole 20 minutes. I am firmly of the opinion that Nick Clegg is a decent human being who did his best in government to introduce practical, ... Continue reading →
Mon 13th
15:25
Liberal Party takes only mildest disciplinary action against Cornish branch for backing Ukip
Back in March the Liberal Party's Cornwall branch decided to withdraw its three general election candidates and instead back Ukip, quoting policy similarities between the parties. That act confirmed the views of many Liberal Democrats about just how wayward the continuing Liberal Party splinter from the days of merger has become, but also caused a fair amount of controversy amongst the Liberal Party's small ranks. The Liberal Party's nominating officer stepped in to stop the Cornish branch officially endorsing the Ukip candidates. However, the Liberal Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) has now taken only the mildest of mild disciplinary actions ...
[IMG: Cllr Trudy Dean on the value, and fun, of an ALDC Kickstart weekend] Why wait for the winter? Book your place at September Kickstart to maximise your chances of local success. "Kickstart has everything you need to get started on your next campaign; time to plan it, expert advice, and the energy that comes from being a movement worth fighting for. And it's fun!" – Cllr Trudy Dean, [...]
One of our volunteer stewards at Federal Conferences is in the news for having saved a man's life. The Manchester Evening explains what happened in an article headlined Good Samaritans save life of man on motorway bridge. Hamza Afzal, a student from Manchester, was driving from Bolton to Manchester with a friend, when they spotted a man standing on a motorway bridge, on the wrong side of the barriers. They stopped and managed to pull him back to safety just as he was falling unconscious. Congratulations to Hamza on his quick thinking and timely actions. * Newshound: bringing you the ...
Jen and I went along to this open day mainly to have a look at the restoration work being done on the former Merseyrail Class 502 EMU. More on that in a future posting but here is a lovely photo of a Leyland Tiger PS2/5 built in 1950 and displaying Southport Corporation colours. [IMG: Southport Open Top Bus r] I must admit to being a train man personally but this bus and its restoration caught my eye. It is one of a batch of 20 ordered by the former Ribble Motors. In 1960 it was sold to the former Southport ...
The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above. How many times have I posted on this subject? Too many is the answer but it shows what an uphill battle it is to try to get guns off our streets. I get the impression that Merseyside Police must struggle to keep a lid on this menace in our local communities. And that's not meant to be critical of their efforts more that it is a far bigger problem than they or us would ever have imagined it growing into a few years ago. Is this not another reminder ...
Having spent five years attacking the Coalition Government and the Liberal Democrats in particular over welfare reform, it is a bit ironic to see that Labour are now proposing to support the majority Tory Government's Welfare Bill containing measures that many people, including the Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Party and many Labour MPs think have gone too far. The Guardian says that efforts by the acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, to show the party has listened to the electorate and will change its stance on welfare appear to be on the brink of collapse as she faces a backlash from three ...
On the face of it, there may seem to be little parallel between Greece today and Germany in 1918/9. The entire circumstance of why they are having to deal with their neighbours in the international community of Europe is, of course, very, very different. However, the more time goes on the more I begin to feel that we may be repeating some of the most basic core mistakes of Versailles in the way that we (Europe) are dealing with the Greek situation. Let's take a quick look back at the situation Greece has got itself into (and I think that ...
George Gideon Osborne. Feared and distrusted by the left, the sensible and reasonable portions of his own party. And now he has given university students yet another reason to distrust him. In the Conservative majority budget issued on July 8 2015, the Chancellor introduced a barrage of attention-grabbing measures, many of which present disappointing news to youths - particularly university undergraduates. The speculation that the first Tory budget since 1996 will be unforgiving for the young and the unemployed have, sadly, been realised. The National Living Wage (set to £7.20 by next April and £9 by 2020) is all very ...
[IMG: Liverpool] I've covered the good news from London that for the London Mayor and GLA selections the regional party wanted to change the rules requiring people to be a member for a year before being able to vote in such selections – and got (slightly flawed) approval to do so. That was a very sensible move as without it the surge of new members in the last few months would have had been told: sorry, we don't trust you – you're too new (though by the way, no problem with voting for party leader because, er..., we do trust ...
Applications are open for the tenth cohort to undertake the Liberal Democrat 'Next Generation of Leadership' programme, funded by Local Government Leadership and co-ordinated by ALDC. The Next Generation comprises a series of training events and discussions over the course of one year, designed to bring out the best of your leadership qualities and help [...]
Mon 13th
10:14
Lib Dems propose neighbourhood plan for St Albans city despite Labour and Tory opposition
Local Liberal Democrats have called for resources to be made available to ensure that residents in the city have a say in how the development plan for the area is put together. Lib Dem Leader Chris White said: 'There is a growing feeling that the current plan process is currently only concentrating on the green [...]
It is now nearly 12 years since I published my book Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life. I can't say I exactly won the argument at the time, which was that the demand for authenticity - and especially in food - was a long-term major trend. I also argued that it wasn't a con. It wasn't about the big food manufacturers pulling a fast one, just by putting a picture of an old-fashioned farm on their packaging (see my more recent take on it in my ebook The Age to Come). Another book, also called Authenticity, ...
Southwark Council is twisting the arms of Albion Primary School to sell a significant part of its site. With that money the school will be rebuilt. The rebuild will I'm sure be lovely. But the principle is alarming. At the same time Southwark Council is spending millions on expanding schools that could be fully funded via the free school route. The school governors and management appear positive and happy about these plans. And I wholly agree with single form entry schools becoming two form entry schools. Two form entry schools are more viable. Although already an Ofsted outstanding school with ...
We don't seem to be winning the war on terror. The violent events in Tunisia led to a very substantial death toll, with many British casualties, on which the media has focussed heavily. I've seen something of this before. In Northern Ireland, few families were untouched by what became known as 'The Troubles.' Had the death toll in [...]
[IMG: tim farron norman lamb squarish by paul walter] You'd be wise to get one if you haven't yet voted in the Leadership election. The deadline for ballots to be returned in this Wednesday, so put it in an envelope NOW and get along to the postbox. No ... wait ... we have some final LibLinks to share with you to help you make up your mind. Huffington Post published articles by both candidates on Friday. First, Tim Farron wrote under the headline: The Time for Britain's 'New Federalism'. I love the unitedness of our kingdom. Ours is a rich ...
First Set Second Set Website
Harriet Harman has given an interview to the BBC during which she intimated that Labour would basically vote through several of the most contentious bits of Osborne's budget. "We've had a serious defeat and we must listen to why." Harriet is both completely right and totally wrong at the same time. Yes, Labour has suffered a serious defeat and needs to understand why that is. Thus far, Labour seems to be taking the losses in May too lightly, so these are theoretically wise words from the interim leader. But the party also needs to understand that simply agreeing with your ...
I recently mentioned that I had taken up with the City Council the poor condition of the roadway of Fort Street. As one resident put it, "potholes ... are bad and getting worse and loose gravel all over the place." I have now had the following response from the council's Road Maintenance Partnership :A Road Maintenance Partnership inspector has arranged for a mechanical sweeper to visit Fort Street and has also raised an order for the repair of the potholes noted with a timescale for completion of twenty eight days or sooner.
This is a reminder that I welcome guest posts on Liberal England. And as you can see from the list of the 10 most recent guest posts below, I am happy to consider a wide range of subjects. But if you would like to write a "Where do the Liberal Democrats go from here?" post, that would be welcome. If you would like to write a guest post for Liberal England yourself, please send me an email so we can discuss your idea. One woman's view of being a senior citizen - Eileen Ward-BirchThe perfect Christmas gift for a carer ...
Tales from the Coffeeshop A particularly good column this week. (tags: cyprus ) The new Conservatism The Economist on Osborne: "often wrong and sometimes dangerous". (tags: ukpolitics ) Four Ways Ukraine Isn't Greece Important differences. (tags: ukraine greece ) The Death of Reddit Not my fight, but interesting on managing online communities. (tags: internet )
Veiled Chapter 1 Online | Benedict Jacka - I really love the Alex Verus series. Excited to read this next one! Harman suggests Labour will back controversial welfare reforms - Labservatives [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
w00t! Week two of training is finished and, I'm pleased to report, that things are still on track. I swapped around the Wednesday 5M and the Thursday 3M again, based on when the weather was less sucky. Yes, "less sucky" meant that I did my 5M in the dark & pouring down rain, with the threat of thunderstorms, but that's waaaaaaay better than humidity in my book. But, hey, I was well-hardened by my years in Seattle. My long run yesterday was ROUGH. It was so hot and sunny, but, thankfully, not humid. I had to talk myself out of ...
