Current Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week) History, by Elsa Morante Mean Streets, by Terrance Dicks Last books finished A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England, by Suzannah Lipscomb The Tomorrow Windows, by Jonathan Morris Selected Essays, by Virginia Woolf Next books The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lampiri Naamah's Kiss, by Jacqueline Carey Books acquired in last week A Star Chamber Court in Ireland: The Court of Castle Chamber, 1571-1641, by Jon G. Crawford
I've always had an interest in baseball, at least, ever since I was introduced to it twenty-five years ago. For my sins, I follow the (ill)fortunes of the Cincinnati Reds, a team cursed with being in the same division as the rather more successful St Louis Cardinals. When I'm in the US, I usually try to catch a game and, when Ros and I were here three years ago, I took her to see her first game, at Safeco Field, the home of the Seattle Mariners. This year, we're on the East Coast, and, being in New York, we had ...
Thu 13th
19:56
After Just 100 Days, The Penny Is Well and Truly Dropping on How Hard Lib Dems Fought in Government
[IMG: LIb Dem leader Tim Farron in Kendal, Lake District. Picture by Jack Hill/The Times. ] So writes Tim Farron, complete with American Over-Capitalisation, For the Huffington Post Today (and don't think too closely about how you end up rolling back tides which were previously blocked...): Heartbreakingly, week after week, we've seen the Tories roll back the tides on a whole raft of policies that we blocked in government. Protection of housing benefit for those under 21 – gone; Protection of child tax credits for larger families – gone; Protection for the benefit rates for people with disabilities and health ...
Remembering Stephen Lewis, whose death was announced today.
Thursday One of the tasks I have taken on in recent years is editing Wainwright's West Country Marginals. A new edition is published after each general election, and with that in mind I recently dispatched an assistant to those parts to sniff out the lie of the land. Today I received his report: At Bridgwater and Newton Abbot, Liberal clubs lie in ruins. Bright with buddleias and rosebay willowherb, they are the haunt of feral cats and truant children. Statues of Jo Grimond have been toppled in Redruth and Combe Martin. They threw stones at me in Chewton Mendip and ...
Reader's voice: Homophobic monk? Liberal England replies: No, homophobic drunk. It's quite different. Congratulations to Plymouth's The Herald on winning Headline of the Day.
Sad sad news. Stephen Lewis, who played Blakey in On the Buses, has died at the age of 88. I once argued that Blakey was hero of that show. If you doubt me, remember that Stumbling and Mumbling has proved that Reg Varney is responsible for all of Britain's economic ills. After On the Buses, Lewis was known for appearing in Last of the Summer Wine. But his career before it is far more interesting. Sparrows Can't Sing was a 1963 film starring Barbara Windsor and James Booth that depicted social change in the East End. It is remembered for ...
A bit too busy with the dissertation to blog much right now, but a couple of thoughts I thought I'd put out there to see if they might spark a discussion. First, returning to a thought I had a few months ago, what if John Smith hadn't stood for Labour leader in 1992? (Probably for health reasons, but the whys of it aren't important) Would the line up of candidates look that impressive at the time? Sure, Blair was only two years away from winning the leadership but in 1992 he was relatively obscure and hadn't come up with 'tough ...
Independent seat. Cause:Disqualifiaction LD Candidate- Jacqui Carwardine Contact: Lucy Hurds, 07827 011611,lhurds@aol.com David Hurds, 01432 265528,info@herefordlibdems.com
[IMG: Lib Dem website screenshot] Want to read the latest news stories and blog posts from the Liberal Democrat federal website but want the stories to come to you rather than have to remember to go and check the website regularly for new content? Then my free email service is just what you need. Just sign up for this daily email of Liberal Democrat news here (tick the second box under "What would you like to receive?"). There will be no more than one email a day - and no email if there hasn't been a new story added in ...
This is the third of a series of pieces that we will publish over the summer. Please do nominate further entries in the comments! This one was suggested by Cathy Thompson! See here for a link to Parts 1 and 2. This latest liberal icon is different in several ways from our prior picks. She isn't a military captain or commander, but she's arguably a greater source of authority than that. She's an educator. And she's practically perfect, in every way. She is the one and only Mary Poppins. As portrayed by Julie Andrews in the classic film, Mary Poppins ...
[IMG: The LGA Lib Dems support Liberal Democrat council groups across the country] A message from Cllr Richard Kemp, on his new role on the Community Wellbeing Board at the LGA: Dear Colleagues, You may have seen that from 1st September I will be taking over as the Lib Dem Deputy Chair of the LGA's Community Wellbeing Board. I am delighted to be doing this because I feel [...]
Cllr Keith Holloway has issued a letter, updating residents on Gatley Barclays following his campaign against its closure: Dear friend, A few months ago I heard out of the blue that Barclays planned to close their Gatley branch – the last bank in the village – along with the cash machine. I spoke to residents and traders, hearing your stories as to how the bank closing would cause real problems. Elderly people told me how difficult it would be to get into Cheadle. Traders told me that they would have no way of paying in cash in the village. We ...
My admission a few years back that I hadn't read this evoked responses of varying enthusiasm. It's Silverberg's most popular novel by far on both LibraryThing and Goodreads, and I had really really intended to read it when it first came out in 1980, but somehow never got round to it. (Memory is tricky - I was sure I'd seen Dave Langford reviewing it in White Dwarf around that time, but it looks like he didn't.) Anyway, it was a serious effort to shift Silverberg's output from SF to big commercial fantasy, clearly drawing on older models, particularly Zelazny (amnesiac ...
Liberal Democrat Voice has a fantastic archive of posts going back to our establishment in 2006. Here's an interesting article from The Voice, which was published in October 2006. You can read the post in its original form, with comments, here: There is a set of stairs in the mother of all Parliaments. At the top is the committee corridor, and the office of the leader of the Liberal Democrats. In the middle, is the MP's tea room, and at the bottom, is the most popular restaurant in the palace. It is a busy set of stairs. There is a ...
Rain stops play at dreamland, due to heavy rain and possible lightning, about 1.50 pm today security bods removed the public from the amusement park, and into the entrance area. Still on the plus side is been a great day so far, with a test train on the scenic railway, I assume punters such as myself and grand kids will be back in the park shortly. No refunds are available the park is technically open although visitors have been turfed out and not allowed back in at this stage. 14.26 Sun is out and so are paying guests , outside ...
I don't normally do this (in fact, I've never done this before), but I thought I'd tell you why I think you should vote for Rob Blackie to represent the Lib Dems at next May's London elections for the London Assembly (obviously this only applies to those who are LD inclined). I guess the reason I feel the need to put my hat in the endorsement ring is because after May's result, the party needs quality candidates – particularly in London as I've written about before – more than ever. Why Rob? Partly it's because I think he's a good ...
This week I've had the pleasure of entertaining a couple of friends from Australia. They arrived on Monday and the younger one, who many years ago was a student in a school where I taught, was extremely indignant. In Kings Cross station she had picked up a free newspaper and was horrified to see the headline: " 'Marauding migrants' threaten our standard of living, says Hammond. " "Anyone in public office in Australia who said something like that would be forced to resign" she said. That day's Guardian also ran the same headline. Philip Hammond is, of course, our Foreign ...
This is a great sort of viral sort of thing. You can join in with the hashtag #imliberal and/or #libdemnewbies. @DerinAdebiyi #ImLiberal poster pic.twitter.com/Gsa4mGvbIA — Dominic Ellis (@DomHeroEllis) August 11, 2015 @Libdemhen your #ImLiberal posters! pic.twitter.com/vp1ikRGRjw — Dominic Ellis (@DomHeroEllis) August 11, 2015 #ImLiberal... pic.twitter.com/HJY9yVsVCN — Dominic Ellis (@DomHeroEllis) August 12, 2015 RT @drclarekane: #Imliberal #libdemnewbies pic.twitter.com/d6DBiYLYzY — Les Bonner (@lesbonner) August 12, 2015 @ZackPolanski your #ImLiberal submission! pic.twitter.com/JUlEGtEAwG — Dominic Ellis (@DomHeroEllis) August 12, 2015 One more to add to the pile.... #Imliberal pic.twitter.com/uVMaKlNDz9 — Drew Heffernan (@Drew1403) August 10, 2015 I'm liberal because... #imliberal #LibDemFightback pic.twitter.com/f5v6ZT5juj — Lexi ...
[IMG: Working with a mentor at Kickstart] Our September Kickstart weekend is just around the corner. Join ALDC and party campaigns staff, and over a hundred local Lib Dem campaigners from across the country, at the party's best local campaigns training event. We asked two previous attendees to tell us how they found their Kickstart weekends. If you like the sound of [...]
The night of the first televised leaders debate - Thursday 15 April 2010 - was a night that changed my life forever. I was one of a small number of party press officers sent to the 'spin room' at Manchester's Hilton hotel to speak to accompany one of our 'big hitters' - in this case [...]
Thu 13th
11:15
LibLink: Norman Baker - with the LibDems reduced to a "pile of rubble", we're in danger of sleepwalk...
Writing in the Independent, Norman Baker details a number of reasons why we are "sleepwalking into a one-nation state", concluding as follows: ...we are seeing attacks on other balancing elements essential to a functioning democracy. The appointment of John Whittingdale to be culture secretary is a very clear sign that the BBC is to be eviscerated when Charter renewal comes up shortly, to the delight of Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the right-wing media. We are already seeing signs of a new, tame BBC, such as the recent excruciating piece on the Today programme when Jim Naughtie bowled the ...
[IMG: No screenshot: the No campaign logo on a T-shirt] In 1988 then Chilean ruler and long-time violent dictator General Pinochet had to hold a referendum on whether or not he should continue in power. The brilliant film No, very closely based on real events, follows the man (actually two men in real life conflated into one for the film) in charge of the anti-Pinochet campaign's advertising which, with 15 minutes allocated to each campaign daily on TV, was central to the referendum. [IMG: No - DVD cover] As the blurb on the DVD cover puts it, No is "the ...
UPDATED DETAILS Labour seat. Cause: Resignation. No LD Candidate.
UPDATED DETAILS Conservative seat. Cause:Resignation. No LD Candidate.
UPDATED DETAILS Labour seat. Cause: Resignation. LD Candidate- Michael Payne.
SNP seat. Cause:Resignation (Now MP). No LD Candidate.
UPDATED with prospective candidate & details for helpers Conservative seat. Cause:Resignation (elected as MP). Prospective candidate: James Gibson-Watt Contact for helpers: Sam Bennett sam@brlibdems.org.uk
UPDATED DETAILS SNP seat. Cause:Resignation (now MP). LD Candidate- Gerard Neary.
When Gordon Brown announced the Chilcot Inquiry to the House in 2009, he said it would take a year to complete. He was roundly mocked by the opposition benches. Time has proven those Tories spot on; here we are, six years later, with not only no final report but nothing in sight in terms of a solid deadline for release. The Iraq War was a bad idea. Some of us thought so back in 2003 because we figured that starting a war where there was none, one that would almost certainly unbalance Shia-Sunni relations in the Middle East in a ...
Speaking to the Huffington Post, Shirley Williams recalls the formation of the SDP in 1981, a key reason for which was the decision of left-wing Labour to campaign to take Britain out of the EEC: We had a genuine sense of being betrayed...on Europe, we were outraged. Shirley is then asked if she thinks there is a risk of another split in the Labour party: Yes I think there is. I don't think there will be a very quick breakaway but I think what there will be, in my view over the next couple of years, a move towards saying ...
Jeremy Corbyn, the front runner in Labour's leadership race, is clearly somebody that mainstream politicians and media types underestimate. The standard criticism of him is that he a blast form the past – somebody that wants to take the country back to the failed solutions of the 1970s. No doubt that's how it looks if you just examine the various things the man has said down the years. But many of his supporters are young and are projecting something quite different onto him. He has crafted his message to appeal to this group, to look like something much more modern. ...
I don't identify myself as particularly British, being a Belfast Catholic and naturalised Belgian citizen, but I still have the passport, and these are fun questions. 1. Marmite- love or hate? Yuck yuck yuck. I have met very few non-Brits who like it. 2. Marmalade- thick cut or thin cut? Thick! 3. Porridge- made with milk or water? Actually I prefer to use about half and half. 4. Do you like salt, sugar or honey on your porridge? Sugar. 5. Loose tea or teabags? Bags. 6. Where on your door is your letterbox? In the garden. 7. What's your favourite ...
Residents have asked me when the now disused (and rather horrible) toilets in Ancrum Road next to the Lochee Park children's play area, will be demolished. The City Council has now advised me : "The engineers have been instructed on the demolition. It is intended to take this to the September Committee with demolition taking place in October." It should be stressed that there will still be public toilet provision very close by - at the Lochee Park Pavilion.
Thu 13th
08:25JUST PUBLISHED: great new summary of Lib Dem beliefs and details of autumn party conference
Following on from the publication of the Liberal Democrat governance review and the conference reports (including details of the party's finances), the consultation papers on the Lib Dem policy making process and also on the Lib Dem philosophy and how it can be applied to the challenges the country faces are out, as is the full text of the motions for September's Bournemouth conference. Here they all are, and if you read nothing else do read the excellent summary of the Liberal Democrats philosophy in Part 2 of the consultation paper on our beliefs and the challenges ahead. (Although the ...
Attack on the pentagon results in discovery of new mathematical tile That's "pentagon" with a small "p". (tags: mathematics ) Azerbaijan: a journalist dies And the @khadija0576 trial continues. (tags: azerbaijan humanrights )
Andy Burnham seems like a nice bloke - but I haven't a clue what he stands for What the author of this calls "slipperiness" is, I suspect, what labour parliamentarians call "credibility" If you want a detailed explanation of what the Sad Puppy thing is all about, focusing on one of them, go here Politics Will Eat Itself - interesting perspective on the labour leadership election from a green [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
