[IMG: _81805038_de27-2] The Lib Dems are getting a new leader, replacing Nick Clegg. I've been really privileged to get to know Nick over the last few years while I was in Sheffield. It's no secret I'm a big fan of his, because I think he is one of the bravest and kindest politicians this country has had. He inspired me to do the mad stuff I did – like running for election competitively in my final year. I have so many memories of effectively hanging out with him in Sheffield, but I wanted to write up a few because why ...
Wed 15th
23:28
I wonder if the Daily Telegraph's editorial team have bothered to read the Conservative Party's memb...
There appears to be an organised attempt by the Daily Telegraph to sabotage the Labour Party's leadership election by encouraging its readers to join the Labour Party and vote for Jeremy Corbyn.Telegraph providing step by step guide on how to vote for Corbyn in order to help "doom" LAB. http://t.co/AJNWGAzdKM pic.twitter.com/Ii6XHxRtV5— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) July 15, 2015 This is, of course, a remarkably stupid idea, especially as it will simply lead to retaliation - the Conservative policy, currently in abeyance, of having open selections will become so easy a target - and coarsen our body politic even further. Admittedly, the ...
Bet you thought I'd forgotten about these, didn't you? No, it's just that the thought of reading any more John C Wright stuff made me feel physically ill, so I gave up on the novellas several times. I did my best, though... The novels are a slightly better bunch. Thanks to two of the Puppy [...]
The Guardian reports: The government has suffered yet another defeat in the House of Lords over an amendment that would give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote in council elections. Labour and Liberal Democrat peers teamed up for the second time this week to change the cities and local government devolution bill. They are also planning to stage similar changes to the EU referendum bill to give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in that poll when it comes to the Lords later this year. The defeat sets the stage for a dramatic stand-off between the two houses on the ...
Copyright © Dennis Calow Emmanuel Baptist Church, which was built in 1871, is pictured here in 1978 - the year of its demolition. It seems already to have passed into the hands of commerce. Leamington Street ran somewhere near the West Bridge but seems to have vanished under the road scheme there. The Leicester Mercury has a recent article about a Roman Catholic church there that was also demolished in 1978.
Virgin Trains, who manage Stockport Station, are being forced to install ticket barriers at each end of the tunnel connecting the Edgeley and Town Centre sides. It's a diktat from government, keen that major stations across the country do everything they can to make sure people who use the trains buy a ticket. Fair enough – can't argue with that aim – but the tunnel at Stockport is also used by people to walk from one side to the other, and the alternative routes can be a lot longer. Virgin are building a new ticket office at the Edgeley side ...
There was a good contribution to the debate on the future of the Liberal Democrats, and I don't mean Danny Alexander's effort in the New Statesman: Neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats should envisage a future as a sort of soggy Syriza in sandals. I don't like some of the welfare reforms in the Budget, but to make it the political dividing line is to fail to recognise the views of most people.I am thinking of the article by Martin Kettle in the Guardian. He writes: In a recent pamphlet David Howarth, a former MP, and Mark Pack, a prominent ...
Wed 15th
21:44Leadership contest: "Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, (almost) too few to mention..."
And so, polls have closed, and the candidates await their fate. Whilst they do, I thought that I might reflect on the events of the past ten weeks or so. Firstly, whilst I have voted for Tim Farron, I would have no real concerns if the membership chose Norman Lamb. He has performed well, confirmed that he is a wonderful exponent of liberal values, and has risen in my estimation (albeit that he didn't have an awful lot of scope to do so - I have always held him in high regard). Indeed, if the Party's circumstances had been different, ...
It would be wrong to abandon every campaigning technique used in the 2015 general election. Despite the result, some constituencies saw unprecedented levels or door knocking, innovative new literature items and original online campaigning techniques. In seats like Hornsey and Wood Green - retaining 32% of the vote when the national average was 8% meant we were doing something right. But the party also has to think about what it lacked - and how we could do things differently to improve our share of the vote in upcoming elections.
I changed the name of my blog a few years back. It was, I admit, an attempt to escape my past and cut a new trail, some distance away from my reputation as a faceless bureaucrat. It also reflected my new status as a rather unexpected member of the country gentry. And no, I haven't moved - I am presently sitting in our designed for purpose office across the patio from our home in the country - but it is perhaps a recognition that I am, at heart, also a bureaucrat... and proud. I think. Actually, yes, proud. Admittedly, due ...
Shropshire Council has agreed to renew Minsterley Motors' contract to run Ludlow's town services - the 701 and the 722 (which serves the park and ride). This is seriously good news and I know that the decision will be popular with bus users. We've had more than our fair share of bus troubles in Ludlow. [...]
If you overlay a map of those areas in which Labour won seats last May with one of the Former English & Welsh coalfields, it almost marries up perfectly. Whilst it perhaps underlines the importance of having a core vote, it also highlights Labour's reliance on tribal loyalties forged in times past. Look at the turnout in many of those seats and you will notice a gradual decline and, whilst Labour's majorities appear healthy, the total number of votes won is also reducing. These Labour majorities, particularly in the North, mask another clear trend: significant numbers of former Labour supporters ...
Wed 15th
19:12
Kirsty Williams: Liberal Democrats fight for the underdog, we fight for what is right, leading on th...
In a speech in Cardiff today, Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams made a considered, candid speech in which she started to chart the direction of the post-coalition party. She has to lead her AMs into challenging Welsh Assembly elections in less than ten months' time. She spoke honestly about the coalition experience and what she felt the Liberal Democrats had got wrong as well as right. She said it was now time to reset the dial and talked about those values of social justice, individual liberty and Keynesian economic efficiency which are the cornerstones of our values. The whole ...
Wed 15th
19:09
Compare and contrast: Kirsty Williams and Danny Alexander on the future of the Liberal Democrats
[IMG: Lib-Dem-logo] It's rare that events line up to give you neat examples and ways to make a point, but that's what's happened today. In Cardiff, Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams was making a speech setting out her vision for the future of the party in Wales and beyond, while somewhere in the aether between the Highlands and London, a piece by Danny Alexander on a similar subject was heading to the New Statesman. Even if they weren't planned to appear on the same day, they provide a quite stark example of how much some people have learned from ...
The headlines on reports about calls for rewilding Britain are generally intended to scare us about the prospect of wolves and lynxes wandering our countryside. But I took two different things away from today's Guardian article by George Monbiot. First how much we have lost and how recently we have lost it: Until 80 years ago, shoals of giant bluefin tuna followed the herring and mackerel migrating round our coasts. For many years, the world record tuna caught on rod and line was one hooked a mile off Scarborough in 1933.Second, how practical many of these rewilding ideas are: Following ...
Attempts to block new standards for exposure to silica dust highlight tensions between public health and corporate power in America's fracking boom. Let me tell you an outrageous yet all-too-common tale of how public health science is politicized to serve powerful interests. There are many poison pills attached to a recent funding bill passed by a U.S. Senate committee, but none taste as bitter to scientists and advocates of worker safety as a provision that would prevent the government from protecting workers from exposure to silica dust. Silica dust is created through construction, mining and other industries that grind down ...
I don't know about you, but it seems to me that putting a 94-year-old in prison for four years leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Perhaps you deserve it if you were the so-called 'Bookkeeper of Auschwitz', as Oskar Groening was, but this isn't to do with who deserves what - it is about the dignity of the judicial system. I'm not of course arguing that there should be a statute of limitations on crimes against humanity, or on sexual predators in the BBC in the 1960s come to that. Just that prosecuting at that distance means you don't ...
It sounds a daft question, given the number of articles critical of the solution to the Greece crisis which have been appearing in my Facebook and Twitter feeds, but things are not always what they seem. Looking at unconscious processes in organisations, the things that people act out without naming tend to be the really important ones My sense is that we might just have tipped into the space where the EU functions like a truly federal entity — albeit with a deep faith in subsidiarity — and the griping is the griping one has when a government makes a ...
Watch the new video from Amnesty International UK:
Remember that idea? Gordon Brown was a huge fan of it. Thankfully it never happened, and hopefully it never, ever will, but I thought I'd just lay out me feelings on why I think it is so utterly and fundamentally wrong, and what we could do instead to make everyone feel like they 'belong' as a truly valued citizen of the United Kingdom. The UK is not a 'nation'. It is a 'family of nations'. This is a concept that many people seem to struggle with - we are not bound together as a 'Nation State' as some other European ...
[IMG: EMLD Hustings] On 30th June the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats held a dramatic leadership hustings, described by Simon Woolley, Director of Operation Black Vote, and guest chair as Tim and Norman's "most difficult, yet most inspiring hustings event to date in front of a largely BME audience." It was certainly the highlight of the campaign for me. In his blog, Mark Pack noted that Simon took questions on themes, "intervening with follow ups and switching to the floor on regular occasions to explore issues in greater depth." Both candidates handled a range of questions from a sceptical, if still ...
Wed 15th
13:23Lord Roger Roberts writes... Liberal Democrats fight to make sure local government reflects will of ...
This year we celebrate the Magna Carta and the struggle for rights and liberties. The democratic rights of the people – our enfranchisement from the Great Reform Act of 1834 to the struggles of today and our belief that the voice of every person in the United Kingdom if registered to vote can carry some influence. This includes all men and women without regard to wealth, status or property rights. All 18 and over are included. In Scotland 16 year olds were able to vote in the recent Referendum and now throughout the United Kingdom there is a campaign to ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-33451224 I don't know about you but all this will they, won't they over whether we are to have a Elected Merseyside Mayor is getting to be tedious. As far as I can see there is no groundswell of support for an elected mayor across Merseyside with only the Labour Party in Liverpool and Sefton wanting one. And what of Joe Anderson's statement when earlier this year he said critics of plans to devolve more powers to the region were "bringing the area into disrepute". I do not care for Joe Anderson's approach to being Liverpool's Elected Mayor and feel ...
[IMG: nhs-logo] My good friend Roy Connell brought this rather worrying article – see link above – from the New Statesman to my attention. It is a sobering read indeed.
As suggested by Phil Cowley:
New Tory MP Scott Mann today used Prime Minister's Questions to press the case for the expansion of Launceston Medical Centre. In response, David Cameron told him that he hoped the centre would be part of the new 7-day per week opening. Sadly, Scott got the wrong end of the stick with his question. He tried to shoehorn a reference to new funding for the NHS and asked whether this could be used to fund expansion. What he fails to realise is that the funding for this expansion is there. It is the bureaucracy of the new NHS Property Company ...
So tommorrow its either the Rebel Alliance or the Norm troopers. Who will win? Then the time will have come to move on, and the media also is interested in other things. We need to get over ourselves. We have spent the last two months in naval gazing and leadership contest, and unlike Labour who can look forwards to another two months of self inflicted hell we can move on. Obviously we have everything crossed that Tim Farron wins tomorrow. But regardless of who becomes leader, the fightback continues. Already we have some important minor victories, council seats in Tory ...
It was in 1946, when Labour, with its first ever overall majority House of Commons (but still less than half the popular vote) repealed previous anti-union legislation, that Sir Hartley Shawcross used the phrase "We are the masters now." Nevertheless, in spite of the convincing size of its majority, the government trod carefully and tried to govern by consensus, however deviously this was achieved. Senior doctors were persuaded to accept the National Health Service because Nye Bevan famously "stuffed their mouths with gold." The utilities and industries that were taken into public ownership were not simply confiscated, but their previous ...
The Welsh Government has published its plans to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol today with some interesting claims. As the BBC report, Ministers believe that the suggested charge of 50p per unit will save nearly £900m over 20 years by cutting crime and illness, with 50 fewer deaths a year. They say that they are committed to using their powers to "improve and protect" the health of people in Wales. All this of course is predicated on the premise that you can effectively price problem-drinkers out of the market. That, by putting up the price of alcohol, those ...
Wed 15th
11:49The truth about Government measures on the gender pay gap - this was the work of the Liberal Democra...
This week has seen David Cameron trying to portray himself as some sort of equalities champion as he announced plans to force companies to disclose data on the gender pay gap. You would never have thought that his party had spent most of the last government fighting such a measure, only to finally agree it almost at the last minute. He may attempt to take the credit, but it's Jo Swinson who did all the work. She tweeted: No, Prime Minister, you are *RE*announcing gender pay transparency that @LibDems forced you to agree to months ago https://t.co/r82YgKVweV — Jo Swinson ...
[IMG: Our 2015 door knocking pack includes surveys, petitions, and street surgery resources] It is that time again when we are out again knocking on doors - hopefully in the glorious sunshine. To give ALDC members a helping hand for your next session, we are have released our latest door knocking pack. As part of the pack we have also ensured that all for the major questions are now [...]
First, thanks to everyone who shared my previous post on splits that don't exist within the Liberal Democrats (but still apparently live on in the conventional wisdom of political reporters). However, just because the image of a party irredeemably riven by a split between classical liberals and social democrats is incorrect, it doesn't mean that there aren't factions within the party, it's just that characterising them in terms of the merger – and assuming they've persisted unchanged since 1988 – is the wrong way of going about looking at them. This post isn't about me listing factions, but rather a ...
There are a large cluster of by -elections this week. These include elections in Rother, Norfolk, Wrexham and Kingston where we have candidates. All eyes will be on Grove Ward in Kingston. The result in a by-election held on the date of the General Election led to a close result with only 18 votes separating [...]
[IMG: The Lib Dem Lists Server is scheduled to close later this summer] The party has recently announced its intention to close the Liberal Democrat email list server. We recognise that there are people who still find this service useful, and who are now going to have to find an alternative communication system. We have reviewed some of the alternatives and have some recommendations as to the best [...]
Ten days ago, a small blue car crashed just off the M9 near Stirling. A call was made to the Police reporting the incident. Nothing was done for three days. The driver of the car, John Yuill, was already dead. His partner, Lamara Bell was still alive but, sadly, she too died on Sunday. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie is one of the MSPs for the area. He has called for a comprehensive and wide-ranging enquiry to which all police staff should be free to contribute without fear of repercussions. He is concerned at attempts by the Chief Constable ...
Six Town Housing have informed councillors that work is to start on roofing works on the Polefield Estate. The wok is being undertaken by BAAS Construction Limited and includes new soffits, fascias, rainwater pipes, guttering, renewal of slate and loft insulation. The work starts on 3 August 2015 and will be finished by 6 November 2015. The Site Compound/Office will be on the corner of Polefield Hall Road/Polefield Circle The work covered houses on Polefield Circle, Grange, Approach, Grove and houses on Heywood Road and Daneshill. Please let us know if there are any issues. Mary and Tim
In the wake of the ongoing Greek tragedy, the far-left in Britain has finally woken up to the idea that the EU may not be the left-wing dreamland they'd fantasised that it was. George Monbiot has said he might vote No over environmental issues (okay...). Owen Jones is flirting with No as well, mostly as a toys out of pram exercise in response to the EU asking Greece to honour its commitments. Some pro-Europeans are worried about these developments – if we lose support on the left, given the antipathy on the right, won't that make it harder for Yes ...
Your local Lib Dem councillors have criticised the way that the Council has cut funding to local community groups – calling for more openness and honesty in decision making. Previously each of the 17 'wards' in the Council was allocated a small budget for local groups, which has always ween well spent in the Prestwich area with a lot of good local groups supported. Previously funding had been: Small Grants fund £46,200 (Money in Bury to give to community groups.) Community fund £25,600 (Money which was available on a ward-by-ward basis – each ward in Bury was given its own ...
The Liberal Democrat campaign for votes at 16 enters a new stage today as the Lords debates the Cities Bill. Liberal Democrat Paul Tyler has put down an amendment which would enable 16 and 17 year olds to vote in Council elections in England and Wales. Labour have said that they will support Paul's amendment. If it passes, it will then be up to David Cameron's Conservative MPs to overturn it. I suspect that they will have no problem doing that given that young people are hardly top of their list of priorities at the moment. However, you don't need ...
A few days ago I covered Matthew Green's reaction to the pamphlet David Howarth and I have penned on a new strategy for the Liberal Democrats. Here's another of the reactions, this time from Nick Barlow: 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 decided from the centre, with local parties expected to simply fall in line. This reached its bewildering peak in the election campaign, with ...
As previously reported there will be some changes to the Simister – Prestwich village bus from next this weekend (19 July 2015). The bus is now extended to run onwards to Radcliffe, Ainsworth and then the Bury and renumbered 91. In the 'inbetween half hours' there will be a Simister to Prestwich bus, now numbered No 90. The timetable leaflet for the No 91 is here, and for the No 90 here. As you can see it is not a very direct route to Bury! Please let us know if there are any issues or problems with the new service ...
Last year, following residents' requests, I asked the City Council to provide a bus shelter on Perth Road at either the Rockfield Street or Windsor Street stops, given how exposed it is there. At the time, I was advised that the site would be added to the list of stops requiring shelters and put through the council's scoring system to gauge priority. I recently asked for an update and have been advised as follows : "The Perth Road site scored reasonably well (against other requests). ... I'm hopeful we'll get this moved before autumn/winter."
As you may be aware 'Festwich' – "the UK's biggest free tribute festival" returns to St Mary's Park on the weekend of 25-26 July 2015. More information here! [IMG: Screenshot 2015-07-15 08.26.19] The local police have asked us if there are any issues that local residents would like to feed in before the event, to ensure that policing is undertaken appropriately – though they do stress that the experience of the event has been very positive from a policing perspective. The event organisers have also apparently conducted a consultation of very nearby residents. Please just let us know if there ...
The Winning Serve: What Not To Do at a Summer 'Networking Event' Also, what *to* do. (tags: networking ) Lego Tries to Build a Better Brick Switching from fossil fuels. (tags: climatechange )
Ten things you really need for your new baby (and ten you don't - necessarily) Inside the head of a Cass-Maran or two I wrote a drabble. It's drabbley. Also very daft, as my drabbles are wont to be. In which researchers conflate carers and psychologists with Actual Autistics in order to say there's controversy in the autistic community No there isn't, there's the autistic community, and there's people like psychologists and carers who try to impose their values on the autistic community because it makes things easier for them and the rest of society. And yes, I know they ...
A new planning applications has been received in Holyrood Ward as below: Application Number: 58862 Registration Date: 17/06/2015 Location: 149 Simister Lane, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2SF Proposal: Prior notification for single storey extension at rear Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you require further information or help with this. The details will be on the Council's website here. Tim
A new planning applications has been received in Holyrood Ward as below: Application Number: 58813 Registration Date: 11/06/2015 Location: 1 Pine Grove, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 3DR Proposal: Single storey extension at side and rear; Porch at front Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you require further information or help with this. The details will be on the Council's website here. Tim
