Appointment with the Pain Relief Unit August 8, 205 Lord Avebury currently complains of pain in both his knees due to osteoarthritis. The pain is generally worse on flexion of the knee, climbing stairs, or standing for long periods of time. He walks with a stick. He also complains of a burning sensation around the ulcer on the lateral aspect of the left foot.... I was pleased to hear that the ulcer is now drying up and that advice has been given for it to be exposed to the air. I am hopeful that as this heals, the pain will ...
[IMG: Jane Ann Liston on rail campaign] This weekend, the Borders railway gets back underway again. This is a real achievement of the Scottish Liberal Democrats in government in Scotland. The Bill was passed way back in 2006. We'll be writing about this more as the first journeys take place on Sunday, but BBC Scotland has done a feature about how the success of the Borders project has inspired other railways campaigners. They interviewed Jane Ann Liston, a regular commenter on this site. She plays a significant role in the StARlink campaign which wants to see the five miles of ...
I first saw this glorious photograph of the full moon over the Devil's Chair, a rock formation that stands atop the Stiperstones ridge in Shropshire, on Twitter. Then on Wednesday it was printed in the Guardian alongside Paul Evans' country diary - sadly it was not posted with the online version. What attracted me was to the photograph was not just its intrinsic quality: it also reminded me strongly of Bertram Prance's dustwrapper illustration for The Neglected Mountain, Malcolm Saville's seventh Lone Pine book. The photograph was taken by Andrew Fusek Peters - you can follow him on Twitter. And ...
Vince Cable has sprung back into life these past few days. He has a website to promote his new book After the Storm and its associated speaking tour. And he has written an article with Labour's Chuka Umunna for the Independent: The deafening silence on the Government's industrial strategy is ominous. For many years Vince has been the Liberal Democrats' preeminent voice on economics, yet you have to ask if we made the best use of his talents in government. One of the party's weaknesses in government was that we never developed a distinctive Lib Dem position on the economy. ...
So for part 3 of my outsider's look at the Labour Party I must say I don't think it's quite dawned on them just how badly this election really went for them. 'What are you talking about, they got +1% of the vote?' I hear you ask. Well this image from electoral calculus demonstrates my [...]
The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above Yes I know I am a trade unionist pointing out that the trade union representing railway workers in the UK is unhappy with the removal of guards on Merseyrail trains when the new rolling stock is delivered sometime in the future. So we would say that would we not. [IMG: Could the new guardless Merseyrail trains look like this?] Could the new guardless Merseyrail trains look like this? But when I posted about the promised couple of days ago I raised this very concern and of course I am ...
Fri 4th
15:45
Christine Jardine quizzes Salmond on his "curious" view that he prefers people "of faith"
It was never likely that I'd make it on to Alex Salmond's Christmas card list. After all, he thinks that people who don't support independence are making the case "against Scotland." Now, it appears, there's another reason for him to disapprove of me; I don't have a religious faith. Pink News has a video clip of him saying: I am biased of course because I am a Church of Scotland adherent and I prefer people of faith to people of no faith or people who have lost their faith. Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Aberdeenshire East seat ...
Fri 4th
14:45In full: Willie Rennie's piece for the National on refugees: "We cannot stand by and leave this to o...
Willie Rennie has been writing for The National, Scotland's daily independence supporting newspaper, about what he thinks should be our response to the refugee crisis. Nicola Sturgeon and Labour's new leader Kezia Dugdale also wrote articles. Below is Willie's piece in full. The parts in italics are those which ended up on the National's cutting room floor. As a country we have a proud tradition of offering sanctuary to those facing persecution. As far back as 1572, we provided safe haven to French Huguenots forced from their homes. During the Second World War, Nicholas Winton exemplified this spirit when he ...
One of the biggest decisions that will be made in this current Government is. Should Britain stay part of the European Union? As their is expected to be a referendum held in 2017 to decide this matter however some people have even speculated that the vote could place as early as next year. The EU [...]
Stockport Council's Liberal Democrat leader Sue Derbyshire has spoken out on refugees: Sue has said the town will play its part in helping refugees fleeing from civil war. "We have all been moved by the plight of men, women and children simply trying to survive. The people of Stockport are generous and warm-hearted - we will not stand by and watch fellow human beings suffer and die when there is action we can take." Sue said. Greater Manchester already takes a high number of refugees, and the Liberal Democrats believe it's absolutely right that we take our fair share. The ...
At yesterday's Annual General Meeting of the Hertfordshire Valleys CCG (the body covering primary care and commissioning in the west of the county) Lib Dem county health spokesperson Chris White raised concerns about the fact that the external auditors had qualified the CCG's multi-million accounts. Chris said: 'This is not just disappointing. It is serious. The auditors [...]
38 degrees does have its uses. Their "Refugees Welcome" campaign allows you to go their website, enter your postcode and see if their is a current "Refugees welcome in -name of town or city-" petition for your locality. If there is, you can sign it if you want to. If there isn't one for your area, you can just hit the red button to "start a campaign" and you can set up a petition for your home town, village or city, and then publicise it via Twitter, Facebook, email etc. The Guardian has a list of ways you can help ...
Greater Manchester Liberal Democrats are very pleased that, having last week rejected our calls for a travel smartcard by Christmas, TfGM are now saying that it can be delivered. Last week: [IMG: Selection_113] This week: [IMG: Selection_114] Greater Manchester Liberal Democrats will continue to press TfGM to deliver this scheme.
Saturday: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals," as, well, Agent K puts it in "Men in Black"! Thomas Hobbes put it a little less pithily but made substantively the same point when he wrote his potboiler on human nature: "Leviathan". And if you think Seventeenth Century philosophy is an unlikely starting point for an episode of Doctor Who, remember there's a very literal "Leviathan" Moon Dragon here. A Leviathan, yesterday So I'm going to start at the point where Clara asks the Earth to vote on whether or not to, as the episode title has it, ...
You're sitting at home, your family is asleep upstairs and you smell smoke. What's your first instinct? Is it to save your family and yourself from the burning house? Or is it to stay put and die in a house fire? After all you bought that house. You BELONG there. You don't have a right [...]
We're told that Britain is a liberal country, that Liberalism is mainstream. After all, every party supported same-sex marriage, the gender gap is narrowing, and even the class system is slowly, slowly, so painfully slowly on the wane. The state's attempts to impinge on privacy are rebutted time and time again – or have been up until now – we keep spending on international development even when we're hurting at home, and each Parliament is more diverse than the last. We have much to be proud of, and rightly so. But in a truly liberal Britain, there would be as ...
Taking a cruise from Liverpool recently gave me a personally unique opportunity to take some shots that otherwise would not be possible. Here are a selection:- [IMG: Formby Point] Formby Point [IMG: Liverpool Pilot Boat Petrel] Liverpool Pilot Boat Petrel [IMG: New Brighton and Perch Rock Lighthouse] New Brighton and Perch Rock Lighthouse [IMG: Buoy those wind turbines are big] Buoy those wind turbines are big [IMG: Crosby Coastguard Station] Crosby Coastguard Station [IMG: When a flying saucer landed in Crosby] When a flying saucer landed in Crosby – Crosby Swimming Baths [IMG: Waterloo & Seaforth Radar Tower] Waterloo & ...
Message from Tim Farron MP Normally, when Lib Dems want to change something we would start our own campaign and ask you to join it. This time, we want the government to take action on the refugee crisis as fast as possible, and that means everyone signing the official government petition. This crisis isn't about [...]
2000 years of history destroyed in 2 days. The Temple of Baal deliberately demolished. An ideology of murder, genocide, destruction. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, are fleeing for their lives. How did the world ever get into this state of affairs? And how do we sort the mess? I don't think anyone yet has a solution. I was in Syria in December 2010. The Arab Spring was just
Fri 4th
10:49Vince Cable and Chuka Umunna criticise Government's industrial strategy in Independent article
Vince Cable has teamed up with Chuka Umunna in an Independent article that warns of the likely consequences if Vince's former department of Business, Innovation and Skills suffers the massive cuts predicted. It's not a protected department, so its budget could be cut by up to 40%. That would make it difficult to continue Vince's successful industrial strategy: One of the positive legacies of the Coalition government was the establishment of an 'industrial strategy' with the same objectives. It was successful in attracting a lot of support from business in general and in key sectors like automotive, aerospace, bio-tech, creative ...
[IMG: Nick Clegg. Photo courtesy of 10 Downing Street CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] The Social Mobility Foundation reports: We are delighted to announce that the former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, has agreed to join the Board of trustees of the charity. Nick Clegg was the leading figure in the Coalition Government's strategy to improve social mobility. He will work with the other trustees and staff as they expand SMF to become a national charity which, by the end of 2018, will be in a position to support young people wherever ...
Fri 4th
09:52
#RefugeesWelcome - Lib Dems to ask Shropshire Council to help settle refugees in Shropshire
The Liberal Democrat team on Shropshire Council is to ask councillors and officers to act urgently to help settle refugee families in our county. We are doing this because we do not believe that anyone, let alone a body with the expertise and resources of Shropshire Council, should stand idle while desperate refugees suffer and [...]
You can read all the articles that have caught my attention this week here: https://delicious.com/stephentall Below are a selection... Cartoons | The Times Peter Brookes in The Times today http://thetim.es/1LZegDg Profile: Tom Watson, the man who might yet save the Labour Party | Conservative Home Interesting profile by @AndrewGimson of Tom Watson, Lab's next Dep Leader – and therefore its next Acting Leader http://bit.ly/1hWKnan The truth about the people and numbers in loud and furious migration debate | UK news | The Guardian Fair & fact-based analysis by @jdportes > The truth about the people and numbers in loud and ...
Politicians think government is 90% policy and 10% management, in reality it's the other way round.' Civil service aphorism As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another.' Proverbs 27:17 A lot is being written about the Labour leadership election and rightly so. That a candidate unable to get the support of more than 20 MPs from the fringe left may be about to become leader of the opposition is astounding. Good reasons have been given for this state of affairs but I fear one more than any other has been glossed over. Jeremy Corbyn is a far better candidate ...
Every once in a while, an image so powerful it can change public opinion, or turn it even further in one direction, comes along. The day before yesterday, we were given one such image: that of a small boy lying face down on a beach, dead. If you have children of your own - and I have a boy only a bit younger than he was - then the image is doubly powerful. With that picture, the debate in Britain on the migrant crisis has changed. All it did was slap us out of complacency. But the slap was unfortunately ...
[IMG: Well done to Winsford - making it 10 Lib Dem gains since May 8th] After a quiet couple of weeks, we're very happy to see a new Liberal Democrat councillor taking a seat – this time from the Labour party. Winsford Town Council is located in Cheshire, our first chance here in the North West to get stuck in! Chris Davies was among the visitors out campaigning for Bev [...]
Listening to David Davies, the Tory MP for Monmouthshire argue on Radio Wales that most of the refugees attempting to enter the UK are not fleeing war, but are "mostly young men, mostly with mobile phones, chancing their luck", it was difficult to believe that any politician could match him for a lack of compassion and understanding of the humanitarian crisis facing Europe and Britain's role in helping to create that crisis. However, he was trumped shortly afterwards by another Tory MP called Davies, this time Phillip Davies from Shipley, who according to the Huffington Post called a female constituent ...
The Evening Standard reports: Ministers were accused of a "shameful abuse of power" after they brought forwards changes to the electoral registration system which critics claim could undermine the democratic outcome of key elections in the capital. The Liberal Democrats said that up to two million voters across the country could be effectively disenfranchised with Londoners particularly at risk since the capital has such a large and transient population... Lib-Dem London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon added: "The Government is blatantly ignoring the independent electoral commission in pursuit of narrow party advantage. It is a shameful abuse of power. "Removing nearly ...
This photograph from Photopolis shows a Hunter Street of old, hugely different to today's Hunter Street 'link road' between Old Hawkhill and the Hawkhill by-pass :
Cameron bows to pressure to allow more Syrian refugees into Britain At last. (tags: ukpolitics migration syria humanrights )
Any other @brighouse247 folks wondering about that Aldi we were going to get? news here From Manspreading to Mansplaining — 6 Ways Men Dominate the Spaces Around Them How the UK government fails and disowns traumatised child refugees [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Fri 4th
07:16Plans for nearly 150 homes off Foldgate Lane refused by planners - will housing off Bromfield Road b...
Residents of Greenacres, Foldgate view and elsewhere will by breathing a sigh of relief at the news that plans by Turley and Richborough Estates for 137 homes off Foldgate Lane and the A49 have been rejected by planning officers (14/04608/OUT). But the battle is not over yet as the companies are bound to appeal the [...]
