I was very impressed by John McDonnell's performances on Today and at the conference rostrum today. Perhaps it was the ordinary way he spoke. It all seemed to make perfect sense. Except for two things... Firstly, he appealed to others to get behind the Labour leadership. This seems a little odd coming from a serial rebel. Why should Labour people get behind this particular leader when John McDonnell failed to get behind a succession of previous leaders? And, by the way, I then saw that Diane Abbott was calling for everyone in the Labour party to get behind the leader. ...
It's party conference time again. Liberal Democrats are first to have their major annual get together in an unusually sunny Bournemouth for the time of year. Sunshine was a welcome change after a very stormy night in the UK General Election. As you'll recall, the Lib Dems entered the election with 57 MPs, and limped [...]
Below are the first preferences in the London Assembly vote. The final rankings are determined by transfers, so do not represent the position in the rankings. The information that was released with this had an additional comment regarding Merlene Emmerson. "Candidate with a protected race/ethnicity characteristic and originally placed 5th but elevated to 3rd in [...]
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. "Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which ...
Stockport Council is currently considering a Marketplace and Underbanks masterplan, looking at the future for this "Old Town" area of Stockport that's been struggling for some years. Here's the report:
Yate Town Council in partnership with Reverend Ian Wallace, Team Rector of Yate are holding a public meeting in response to the Syrian Crisis at the Community Room in Tesco's, Yate Shopping Centre at 6.30pm on Thursday 1st October 2015. The Yate community are welcome to attend to view their ideas of how we can work to raise funds for the Red Cross to provide aid for the Syrian Refugees. If you are interested in lending support as an individual or belong to a group please attend the meeting on Thursday 1st October or contact info@yatetowncouncil.gov.uk or call 01454 866506. ...
In case you haven't seen the notices, Nibley Lane (between Badminton Road and Westerleigh Road) is expected to close from 9.30am until 2.30pm tomorrow (29th September 2015) for cleaning.
I use the word processor LyX to write my books in, and have done for several years. I've recommended it to everyone I can — I believe it's the best word processor, by far, I've ever come across. However, I've just hit on an annoying bug while formatting the California Dreaming book. In previous books, [...]
If the Liberal Democrats across the UK are on the political equivalent of a life support machine, here in Wales the defibrilator is on standby in anticipation of a cardiac arrest. The recent ITV poll makes for grim reading, placing the Welsh Lib Dems on five percent and on course to retain only one seat. UKIP have overhauled both ourselves and Plaid Cymru and seem set to take a clutch of seats at our collective expense. I'm struggling to see how we can respond. UKIP supporters are hardly natural Liberals and there is very little that our agenda has to ...
A visit to Dr M to get her advice about the ulcer on my ankle, which has lasted since June. Her colleague had prescribed a week of antibiotics at the beginning of September, and I was supposed to go back if that didn't clear it up. I missed that, but this time we have a telephone consultation next Monday, and presumably Dr M will then add another week if necessary.
[IMG: City Hall, London] To go with a Mayor of London candidate and a set of London Assembly list candidates, the Liberal Democrats now have their first two GLA constituency candidates selected. And an excellent first two it is: Elaine Bagshaw (City & East) Amna Ahmad (Croydon & Sutton)
I think you would: Most bizarre protest yet seen at #lab15 – Christian fundamentalist Irish dancing outside the Grand Hotel pic.twitter.com/MqOqJotaeF — Peter Henley (@BBCPeterH) September 28, 2015
"Jeremy Corbyn's revolutionary strategy is simple: there are millions of people out there who either voted for someone else or didn't vote at all who are simply waiting for a truly hard left platform from the Labour Party." Unfortunately for him, argues Mark Wallace, this is a fantasy. James Graham offers five, if you will, reckons on Tim Farron and the Liberal Democrats. "Hitler and his publicists drew on mountain imagery from Germany's literary and artistic movements (particularly Romanticism) to mythologize the Führer as a mystic leader who immersed himself in - and embodied - the terrible and magnificent forces ...
Ludlow's Mayor Paul Draper and myself are hosting a public meeting to discuss what our community can do to help refugees during the current crisis. Please come along to talk about what you are doing and how you might be able to help. The meeting is at 7.00pm for 7.30pm at the Feathers Hotel this [...]
Putting the final touches on the California Dreaming book. I'm hoping a beta version the ebook will be available to Patreon and Kickstarter backers on Wednesday, and at the latest it will be with them this weekend. At that point, this blog will be starting up again properly, with new posts every day. The paperback, [...]
Charities have been in the news this summer: first the 'Olive Cook' affair, raising the question of over-aggressive charitable fund-raising, which led to an active Daily Mail campaign, and then Kid's Company, a charity which had run repeated deficits, depending on large cheques both from government and from major donors to bail it out, with trustees who seem to have been in awe of a charismatic chief executive. Liberal Democrats watching the news to catch coverage of Tim Farron's conference speech will have heard about the publication of a report on abuses of charitable fund-raising, which proposes a tougher regulatory ...
I wasn't at Lib Dem conference last week - Bournemouth is quite a way from Hanoi - so I had to settle for experiencing it vicariously. That's a shame because it sounds it sounds like it was actually rather pleasant. Writing in the Independent, Daisy Benson seems to suggest that it may actually have been [...]
Along with Shirley Williams, Simon Hughes, Kath Pinnock, Alison Suttie, Nick Pearce and Miranda Green I took part in a (very crowded!) IPPR fringe on 'Where next for the Liberal Democrats?' at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth. Courtesy of IPPR here's a recording of the event: The pamphlet I make reference to, on building a larger core vote for the Liberal Democrats, is available here.
Here's a copy of an email I sent to local residents today about the consultation on the North London Waste Plan - which could affect the Pinkham Way site. Please add your name to the Pinkham Way Alliance response here - before 5pm tomorrow (Tuesday 29th September.)
[IMG: Container Ship trade] You can catch up with my previous pieces on TTIP here: TTIP — the US-EU trade deal. What is it, and where is it up to? TTIP and the NHS: Separating fact from fiction Anti-TTIP protestors reach #ldconf. A reminder of why they are wrong A new face at the negotiating table It's a few months since I last wrote here about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed trade and investment agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union and United States. It is Liberal Democrat party policy to support TTIP, so it ...
This is a new weekly series that I will be running detailing the by election results across England, Scotland and Wales from the week before. All five of last weeks principal council by-elections resulted in holds. In Norfolk, the Conservatives comfortably held their seat in county council's Loddon division with a 641 vote majority. Liberal Democrat candidate Christopher Brown polled 12.2%, a vote share increase of 7.1% from two years ago. The Conservatives also secured a comfortable hold in Chedgrave & Thurton ward in South Norfolk (DC). The Liberal Democrats again managed an increase vote share from the previous election, ...
I couldn't go to Conference so listened to Tim Farron's speech on i-player afterwards. What a great speech: full of idealism, commitment and determination. We're so lucky to have Tim as leader. But there was one thing that really worried me. I had already seen reports in the news that morning that Tim was going to talk about getting back into Government again in 2020 – about how going into Coalition had been the right thing to do. Looking at the decimation of the Party and the loss of so many first-class MPs I am still not so sure about ...
[IMG: index] The Liverpool Echo has this rather odd and unfortunate story – see link above. Not the luckiest of pubs the Blue Anchor as it was not that long ago that it was deliberately set on fire (3 times I think).
[IMG: bhm-logo600] Our party will officially celebrate Black History Month 2015, with photos of members celebrating their Black Heroes hosted on our website. Event lists with Black History Month information is being mailed out to Local Party Chairs – alerting them about the eclectic mix of theatre, music, film and talks etc., taking place during this celebratory month of October. The information is an aid to encourage us to take this celebratory month and embrace new cultures and new members from ethnic minority backgrounds. Black History Month is a yearly event and is inspired by many contemporary cultural thinkers that ...
John Dodd is carrying out a survey in Larkfield Lane and surrounding Roads, to find out if residents are satisfied with the bus service in the area. A few months ago, the No 42 bus service was withdrawn from Southport and the No 40 bus was re-routed, leaving Larkfield Lane without any bus service at all. These changes have caused inconvenience to many local residents, particularly to people who can't walk very far and those who don't have access to a car or other form of transport. The changes to the buses were not widely advertised, and the bus company ...
It can't be easy being Ruth Davidson at the moment. Her party at Westminster, unrestrained by the Liberal Democrats who held them back from doing their worst for five years, is slashing the incomes of the poorest working people, wreaking ... Continue reading →
Oooh the moon is all super, it looks huge. Except it doesn't. When it's high in the sky it looks a similar size to what it always does. The moon through a smartphone always looks like a small blob pic.twitter.com/jCLcvvwHQM — Ryan Cullen (@artesea) September 27, 2015 The term Supermoon was only coined in 2011 by someone claiming end of the world style disaster, and the media still put quotes around it to cover their backs. The pedigree (when the moon is closest to the earth) occurs several times a year making the event not that unique. So how much ...
A year ago I mulled over whether or not it would be worth the investment to go to Glasgow in January 2015 for the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology conference - or DOP conference for short. In the end I wasn't able to go because of ill health, but having spoken to a couple of fellow students who ...
Mon 28th
12:42
History teaches us a great deal – You just would not build on the historically important food ...
I came across the fascinating web site British History On Line the other day:- www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp215-221 www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp200-208 The above links are direct to the pages relating to Maghull and Lydiate but of course you can search for any community of your choice. My eye was taken by these particular two references to Maghull and Lydiate:- Maghull is an agricultural township, situated in flat country fairly well supplied with trees, generally grouped about the villages and farmsteads. The land is divided into arable and pasture, the latter mostly to the west, whilst numerous market gardens thrive on a light sandy soil. Crops ...
Since we left them alone in government, the Tories have ended housing benefit for the under 25s, frozen working age benefits for four years (effectively cutting them because inflation will slowly drive up the cost of living), and cut Employment and Support Allowance for new sick and disabled claimants by 30%. They've introduced a minimum wage masquerading as a Living Wage, and even gone so far to rule that the full hourly rate should only be given to those over 25. And they've nakedly pandered to their core vote by not touching certain wasteful benefits given to wealthy pensioners, most ...
[IMG: Help ALDC give more young party members the chance to develop their campaigning and professional skills] In our first full week of fundraising, fourteen ALDC members and supporters have donated £565 towards our campaign to help finance two Campaigns and Communications Internships at ALDC. Our thanks to everyone who has supported this project so far, and if you would like to find out more about the project, please visit our Crowdfunder [...]
[IMG: haringey-new-logo.gif] No, this is not a joke. This is Labour-run Haringey Council's new logo, which has now cost the taxpayer over £86k. And here are 16 reactions from Twitter - which accurately portray the local feeling about it (if the hundreds of conversations I've had with residents are anything to go by...)
Last night we set the alarm for 2am so we could be up for the lunar eclipse. We watched it from our back garden in Sunniside and for an hour I took a series of photos of the shadow of the earth crossing the moon's surface. The resulting video, less than a minute long, is above.
The privatisation of Royal Mail was mooted by all the main political parties and finally happened under the last government. Like a lot of the public sector, our postal service suffered from years of underinvestment and a failure to modernise. The political consensus in the Thatcher years, and beyond, became public equals bad, private equals good. Our party got wrapped up in this to some extent and a policy of part-privatisation of Royal Mail was adopted prior to the 2010 General Election. Not a member at the time, I was somewhat surprised at this move because I had always thought ...
September saw a grisly mangling of democracy in Liverpool Town Hall At our mid-September Council meeting I invited some of our new members to come and see for themselves the grisly mangling of democracy that takes place there on a ... Continue reading →
This is a post that I should have written long ago. About a month or so back, I posted a link to an xkcd cartoon. It was inspired by an incident around that I was going to write about. However every time I tried to write the article another incident came back to my mind, [...]
A couple of years ago, I heard for the first time a hint of what I believe is both the past and the potent future of a Liberal message for business - enterprise, competition, the right of the underdog to challenge the conventional, the feather-bedded, the privileged and the monopolistic. It was Leeds MP Greg Mulholland talking about the entrenched monopoly for the pub companies, which had allowed them to squeeze the licensees. Since then, I have begun to hear the same message with increasing frequency from Liberals - until I heard it definitively in Tim Farron's talk to the ...
Jeremy Corbyn's proposal for a People's Railway has sparked interest and support, tinged with more than a little nostalgia for a past that really didn't exist. Those who hanker after British Rail were clearly not there. It was the butt of national jokes about punctuality, cancellations, strikes and stale sandwiches. It was also serving a transport market very different from today. Rail journeys in Britain have doubled since 1997 and are set to continue rising rapidly. Freight traffic increases every year too. Our rail lines are the busiest and most intensively used in Europe if not the world. Britain has ...
[IMG: September Kickstart was attended by over 10 local Lib Dem campaigners and staff] With Conference out of the way, now is the time to plan your trip to ALDC's Kickstart training weekend. Combining intensive campaigns training with our unique mentoring system, Kickstart is the best opportunity for local campaign teams to come together, learn the latest in campaign techniques, and fine-tune your local plan for next May's elections. [...]
Since 2010, the austerity cuts have meant Stockport Council's budget for day-to-day spending has fallen by more than £50 million. The Lib Dem approach to this has always been to reject so-called "salami-slicing" and instead to change the way the council does things to save money and minimise the effect on residents. The council today looks very different to the one I joined in 2009. Things have radically changed. There are a fraction of the number of senior managers. We work more closely with other councils and public sector partners. We've worked hard to eliminate waste and duplication wherever it's ...
Although the media have reported the refusal of the Labour Conference to debate Trident, they have barely touched on the significance of that decision in relation to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Corbyn of course is still attracting a huge amount of goodwill within his party and in the country as a whole. He won the leadership on a platform of radical change, embracing all the left wing policies that Labour has eschewed for three decades. In particular he pledged that the Labour Conferences would debate the controversial issues like Trident and would no longer be stage-managed as they have been in ...
In light of recent events, one key question that has been flying about is where we fit into this new and radically changed political climate. Corbyn's Labour may adopt more liberal policies on social issues such as mental health or LGBT rights, which whilst welcome gives us fewer unique campaigning avenues. Amongst all this, the economy is a key divider, and how we frame our policies may be crucial to our electoral revival or lack thereof. Building a new liberal economics, distinct from Conservative or Labour strategies, is possible, and we need to do it by the simplest of methods ...
Mon 28th
08:44
How the Tories not getting a majority in 2010 set them up to dominate: an alternative reality
Imagine an alternative universe in which the following two things happened in May 2010: the Tories ended up after the general election with a tiny parliamentary majority (think the one they have now) and the Lib Dems did much better than they ended up doing (think three figure number of seats, as was confidently predicted by the pundits in the run in to polling day). One other thing must be true of this alternate 2010 then if the two conditions above hold true: Labour would have done a lot worse. Like, 100-odd seats worse, which would have meant that they ...
The Guardian reveals that Nasa is to reveal a "major science finding" from its Mars exploration mission, giving rise to rumours that the US space agency has found traces of liquid water on the red planet. The paper says that the space agency has invited reporters to a press conference at 3.30pm UK time today, which will be attended by Lujendra Ojha, who discovered possible signs of water on Mars as an undergraduate student. And whilst it is keeping its cards close to its chest, they have promised a "Mars mystery solved": Nasa has found evidence of water on Mars ...
The photograph below shows the corner of Dundee's Seagate running from west to east left to right and St Andrews Street leading northwards at the righthand side. The area was cleared for St Andrews Buildings, which bear an inscription dated 1894. The corner building here housed John D. Bruce, solicitor, and John Findlay jun., a house-agent who lived at Floralbank in Broughty Ferry. Nextdoor, at No. 114 was the saddler, Robert Sim, who lived at No. 112. J. Hendry is listed there in 1891-92. No. 108 was occupied by Fairweather and Sons, tobacco manufacturers, George Livie, boatbuilders, and the home ...
My suspicion is that this blog post is going to represent how a lot of Green members are feeling [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Ahead of her Sense About Science lecture, Tracey Brown digs around the evidence with some uncomfortable concerns about accountability in public life This evening (Monday 28 September) I'm giving a lecture at the British Library to a group of researchers, policymakers, journalists, and representatives from NGOs, community groups and other societies involved in the work of Sense About Science. They all know us as the evidence people, so they'll be expecting me to talk about my favourite subject: the need for evidence and accountability in public life. What they might not be expecting is to be told that they're part ...
The newly discovered tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh Hooray! (tags: sf history archaeology )
