The podcast versions of this week's posts are now up: California Dreaming: Sharleena On Toxic Masculinity And California Dreaming (tw: rape) California Dreaming: Woodstock Charging Toward Fascism A new Batpost will be up on Patreon, and an older one on Mindless Ones and the podcast, either later tonight or tomorrow. Tagged: podcasts
This video begins on a ferry and ends at Southampton Central. In between is some lovely colour footage of steam on lost sections of the Isle of Wight Railway shot in 1963. See the comments on the original posting on Youtube for the exact locations.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 425th 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 (26 July – 1 August, 2015), 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. Cyril Smith police inquiry ...
I think we all know that I'm no music critic or music writer. I have many, well some, well one or two journalistic qualities and writing about music isn't one of them. So I tend not to write about it and music certainly isn't my thing as it were. Yet every so often a song comes about that I keep clicking on whether it be YouTube or Spotify when I'm on the move and a song but an artist who is somersaulting up my music thoughts and that artist is former Canadian Idol third place finisher Carly Rae Jepsen. From ...
Emily Davey says Conservative policy is guaranteeing that there will be another housing crash. "In 16 July, Justice Warby awarded a wealthy businessman £110,000 in libel damages at the High Court in London. ... What was also notable about this case was that the libel in question involved two Russian nationals, was only reported on in Russian by Russian news stations, and had already been rejected by the prosecutor-general of Russia." Libel tourism lives on in London despite the Defamation Act 2013, explains Henry Williams. John Gray examines the background that produced Friedrich Hayek. Seth Fiegerman looks at the rise ...
[IMG: 7 ver 4 full] Many thanks to the 14.200 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Why I went from being Rugby Green party's General Election candidate to a revived Liberal Democrat activist (60 comments) by Terry Green Leaving UKIP for the Liberal Democrats (45 comments) by Jakob Whiten ++Tim Farron announces diverse spokesperson team (56 comments) by Newshound #libdemfightback: What do the polls say? (24 comments) by Stephen Ruffian The real reason why Mark Williams MP isn't in Tim Farron's front bench team, announced today * by Paul Walter What could ...
Sun 2nd
16:35
[Lib Dem Future] Tragedy of Lib Dem Councillors turned winning Independents in Clegg era leads to Co...
July 30, 2015 Conservative 286 [40.1%; -19.2%] Hykeham Independents 180 [25.2%; +25.2%] Labour 161 [22.6%; +22.6%] Green 64 [9%; +9%] LD Candidate Diana Catton 22 [3.1%; +3.1%] [Lincolnshire Independents [0.0%; -40.7%]] Majority: 106 Turnout: 19.1% Conservative gain from Lincolnshire Independents Percentage change from 2013 The North Kesteven where the Conservatives won a formerly Lib Dem held [...]
Sun 2nd
16:15
Rennie tackles Justice Secretary on allegations that Police Scotland spied illegally on journalists
Today's Sunday Herald reports that Police Scotland has illegally spied on journalists to try to identify their sources, citing the Interception of Communication Commissioner's Office: However, IOCCO last month revealed that two unnamed forces had breached the revised Code since March 25. It said: "Two police forces have acquired communications data to identify the interactions between journalists and their sources in two investigations without obtaining judicial approval. "These breaches were identified during our inspections. In these cases the normal RIPA process was used and the data was approved by a designated person." In one of the cases, a force acquired ...
I have made the following representation to Arriva Buses via their web site:- I am concerned about the proposed axing of the 311 bus through Lydiate. The bus has run for generations and I recall using it as a child. It will leave the vast majority of Lydiate without a service to Ormskirk which is the nearest market town to our community. Please reconsider this move and don't withdraw the bus on 30th August. I realise that it is a commercial service run to make money but surely promoting it and gaining more users is a far better alternative to ...
International insanity Iran is on the verge of making peace with the world. The United Nations Security Council unanimously endorsed a draft resolution of what's been called the 'Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action' between Tehran and the 'P5+1' group of countries - that's America, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany. The plan limits Iran's nuclear [...]
I saw a discussion elsewhere on social media about this and thought it was worth mentioning here. If you are running a committee room on polling day, or in fact any election HQ, bear in mind that you are likely to have people there who have periods. It is also very probable that they will be there for many hours working very hard. It is therefore essential that you make some provision for them. It's really quite simple. This post will tell you what you need to do and why. It's very simple. A packet of basic sanitary pads (which ...
This weeks by-elections seem to reflect a change in the mood of the electorate. It is always dangerous to read to much into a single weeks results, however after the stunning results for the Lib Dems last week this week shows a different picture. What is apparent is a sharp fall in support for Labour. [...]
July 30, 2015 Conservative 495 [52.2%; +8.3%] Labour 175 [18.4%; -3%] UKIP 171 [18%; -2%] LD Rory Roberson 108 [11.4%; -3.4%] Majority: 320 Conservative Hold Percentage change since 2015 Figures from the ALDC website This by-election was held in an area of Conservative strength. In this election the conservatives saw an increase in their vote in [...]
"Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone — especially to those in the family of faith." (Galatians 6:10) It has always been said by political activists and church clergy "welcome to the family." And it is thought they mean family as a social concept perhaps. We would be mistaken.... More The Family of Libdems & the Church – Relativism
July 30, 2015 Labour 508 [69.5%; -21.2%] UKIP 102 [14%; +14%] LD Candidate Andy McGregor 82 [11.2%; +11.2%] Conservative 39 [5.3%; -4%] Majority: 406 Labour Hold Percentage change since 2013 Figures from the ALDC website This election was held in a seat not fought by the party in 2013, and it is a great credit to the [...]
July 30, 2015 Listed below are the first preference votes: SNP 1,690 [55.1%; +26.1%] Labour 771 [25.1%; -25%] Conservative 350 [11.4%; +4.2%] Green 130 [4.2%; +0.7%] LD Jonathan Waddell 125 [4.1%; -1%] [Independent [0.0%; -3.6%] [Scottish National Front [0.0%; -1.4%] SNP Hold Percentage change from 2012 Figures taken from ALDC website. This election was held [...]
Tim Farron has written to David Cameron to urge him to ensure that the UK takes its fair share of those poor, desperate, vulnerable people we've all seen on our tv screens. He wrote: I am writing to you about the current humanitarian crisis in Calais and its impact here in the UK. I am sure you agree that it is heartbreaking to see hundreds of desperate people subsisting in makeshift camps night after night, willing to risk life and limb in the hope of a better future while many in Kent and across the country see their daily lives ...
Listed below are the first preference votes: SNP 1,939 [61%; +23%] Labour 606 [19.1%; -15.1%] Conservative 313 [9.8%; +3.9%] LD Ken McLeod 207 [6.5%; -2.5%] Green 144 [3.6%; +3.6%] [Independent [0.0%; 12.9%]] Turnout: 25.3% SNP Hold Percentage change from 2012 This election was caused as a result of the resignation of a winning SNP candidate in [...]
Apropos of nothing at all, here's a particularly pointless (and not entirely serious) poem I wrote over a decade ago about music, and a particular personal unfavourite composer of mine! How can we define a noise,meandering, wandering, aimless?A sound abhorrent to the ear-a drill would be more painless. With wailing highs and random lowsit hovers with no structure,cascading down, then up again,insane volcanic erupture! It's fast, then slow, then slow again,with timing all erratic,leaping like a poisoned shark,or duckling tied in plastic. On it drones it misery-it's dismal, dreadful dischord,pointless murderous, tortuous dirge,as interesting as cardboard. It started as an ...
Sun 2nd
13:15Bournemouth Conference Agenda: 5 days, 15 policy motions, 8 keynote speeches and some very important...
[IMG: 2015 Outline Agenda] The outline agenda for the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference in Bournemouth has been published and in it there is a great deal to interest and excite the members both old and new who will be heading to the seaside town. I am really looking forward to it because I have never been to Bourmemouth before. We don't yet have the text of the motions, or the directory of fringe meetings, but we do know when all the key debates and speeches are taking place. The most controversial motion on the agenda is the one to oppose ...
There has been much talk over the last few days about these issues, and indeed about how they relate to one another in terms of priorities, bandwagons, and so on. There have, for example, been accusations such as 'you care more about lions than migrants', and it is true that some people seem to be making far more fuss about one issue, and the welfare of one 'group', than the other. That issue was quite succinctly summed up by one person referring to a Daily Mail front page talking of both issues, "Britain: Angry that a Lion is shot, Angry ...
I lost touch with contemporary music in the Eighties, but got up to speed again in the Nineties. Maybe it's a bit of an old warhorse, but I still like this.
We've all noticed that Jeremy Corbyn has jumped dramatically from rank outsider to Labour leadership favourite. An old school leftie, in sandals and a beard (bear with me Liberals, I'm not against sandals and beards!) seems set to tap into a Labour rank and file zeitgeist not many thought was there a few weeks ago. Whilst the Boris star may have been dampened a little with water canon etc since he arrived in Westminster, he still electrifies any campaign he's involved in. And a mop-haired loon with a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, and a track record ...
Living in Kent this summer has meant living with Operation Stack. The cost of #OpStack to the UK has been estimated as £250 million, so far. So, the solution? Compensation from France for the border-blocking strike action? Processing the few thousand asylum seekers efficiently and swiftly before it all gets out of hand and they resort to desperate, life-threatening (to both hauliers, holidaymakers & asylum seekers) measures? Um, no... as every isolationist state knows, what you need is a fence. With guard dogs and electrification and when that doesn't work, more, bigger fences called 'rings of steel' and maybe double ...
[IMG: frost series] I didn't approach R.D. Wingfield's DI Jack Frost series with any great enthusiasm. I'd seen enough of ITV's Sunday night schedule-filler, with David Jason in the title role, to assume it would be lightweight, middlebrow, plodding fare, with signposted comic interludes. I was utterly wrong. I gorged all six books in the series — Frost at Christmas, A Touch of Frost, Night Frost, Hard Frost, Winter Frost and A Killing Frost — within a couple of months. There's little point writing an individual review of each, as they all follow the same formula... There are usually three ...
Labour, You can stop the Tories from ever having a majority again. Your party is caught in a tussle between its beliefs and its electability. The main weapon your right wing has against the front runner is the threat that your party will remain powerless: Corbyn supporters reply, "but this is what we believe in". If your party exists not to represent the kind of people who support Jeremy Corbyn but to be a socially conscious alternative to the Tories, then to win your party is always going to be wearing a Tony Blair mask. You'll beat the Conservatives through ...
Sun 2nd
09:08
Lessons from the AV referendum: Farage is playing with fire with the official designation thing
The Yes to AV campaign faced many, many problems. Thankfully, one of them was never whether or not we'd have competition as to who would be the officially designated Yes campaign for Electoral Commission purposes. We were scared that some bunch of weirdos might come out of the woodwork at the last moment though and try and claim it for themselves. Because the thing is, even if the other campaigning group looking for official designation was either a deliberate joke or a mad, one man band living above a garage in Dorset, there still would have had to have been ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe:
The "Knit 1 Bike 1" event takes place at the Fluph Yarn Shop, 164 Blackness Road, tomorrow - Monday 3rd August - from 7pm to 9pm. Textile artist Janet Renouf-Miller is cycling around Scotland knitting or crocheting what she sees. She lands at Fluph yarn shop tomorrow and will hold a mini workshop at 7pm. Janet will talk about her travels so far and her plans to write a book. Come along for a cuppa and the crafting cycling fun at Fluph, it's free! All welcome - enquiries to fluphshop@gmail.com or phone 690190.
If like me you live in and love Lydiate then have a look at a document produced by Sefton Council that profiles the Parish of Lydiate. [IMG: cropped-Lydiate-Parish-Council-Logo-e1372273297819] It is available on the Lydiate Parish Council web site:- lydiateparishcouncil.gov.uk/neighbourhood-plan/ Scroll down to the bottom of the page it is the link titled:- Profile of the Lydiate area
Historic England has lodged a formal objection to plans for a partially underground house near the Castle on the Linney (15/00459/FUL).. Bill Klemperer, Principal Inspector of Ancient Monuments for the body has told Shropshire Council: The proposal is modern and innovative in design and would involve considerable bulk earth moving during construction, followed by landscaping. [...]
Migration is not a crime, but the way it's discussed is criminal Mark Hamill Autographs are hillarious. Why Angry, Entitled Man-Children Pick on Women So, you're an MP now? Kiss your life, friendships, & probably sanity goodbye We need to talk about periods. Dear Bruce Timm, Please Leave Barbara Out of The Killing Joke *Bi erasure klaxon* [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
About a month ago, I was at a party, and was introduced to a group of people I'd not met before, but who all knew each other, and who had very good reasons for wanting to make a good first impression on me. We'd been chatting for maybe two minutes, and then the following exchange [...]
Excellent coverage of Yorkshire Day in Redcar by @zetlandfm. Thanks also to @CoastalView for attending the event.
Anna Paola has been a familiar figure round Soho for many years. I remember her playing the piano at Kettner's when that restaurant was owned by my friend (and great Liberal) Peter Boizot, but much of her adult social life has also been lived in the narrow grid of streets along and around Old Compton [...]
