So, Lord Trefgarne, whose side ARE you on? The Government loses a(nother) vote in the Lords, and all of a sudden, Lords Reform is on the cards. Now, given that they've tried to exclude anything up to two million voters from the electoral register, rigging the constituency boundary review in the process, intend to shut off the Official Opposition's primary source of income, they're hardly holding themselves up as defenders of the democratic process. And now, they've come for the Lords. Get up and dance, you know that you want to... It is quite amazing what the internet can expose ...
This was an episode of his 1978 series Six English Towns. More praise of Stamford here.
This post was originally published on Lib Dem Voice. Don't tell anyone, but George Osborne probably let out a sigh of relief when Baroness Manzoor's fatal motion failed last night. Of course, it was inevitable that Labour peers would rather bravely abstain on the cuts to tax credits, as their elected counterparts did in July. And Jeremy Corbyn is probably skating on thin ice, given that the scandal of Labour abstaining in July put him where he is today. Eagle-eyed watchers will note that the Government majority was smaller than the number of active Labour peers. But what was most ...
That's the answer given by Lord O'Neill of Gatley in answer to a written question from Ros this afternoon. Question: To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of public sector employees currently earning less than the National Living Wage. (HL2582) Tabled on: 13 October 2015 Answer: Lord O'Neill of Gatley: At Summer Budget 2015, the Chancellor announced a new National Living Wage which is a compulsory increase in pay for all workers over 25. It will come into effect in April 2016 at £7.20, 50p above the current National Minimum Wage. The Government will ask ...
Nick Barlow is right to wince at calls to "take the politics out of" things. "It's 'mystifying' that Britain is persisting with the deal for Hinkley Point, Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance said ... 'It seems to me that when you're in a money hole, you should stop digging'." Alex Morales and Rachel Morison on the financing of the power station. Chris Hanretty explains why Daniel Hannan and Owen Jones are both wrong about Portugal. Matthew Lynn asks how long W. H. Smith, once a much-respected newsagent and bookseller, can keep squeezing profits out of falling sales ...
What is it? A: Basically, it involves Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT), Peterborough City Council and the Environment Agency working on a 5+ year programme looking at ways of holistically improving a sub-catchment of the River Welland. The area includes Marholm Brook, Brook Drain, Paston Brook, Werrington Brook and Cuckoo's Hollow. So if you're someone who walks [...]
From the Leicester Mercury: The national Tory party has sacked the leadership of the City of Leicester Conservative Association in the wake of a disastrous performance in May's elections. The party's board - its ultimate decision making body - has relieved the seven members of the association officer and management team of their duties. The Mercury understands a number of senior local Tories had raised concerns with the party hierarchy relation to the way the campaign was run.Both opposition parties have suffered a collapse in recent years. At the citywide elections of 2003, 25 Liberal Democrat, 20 Labour and 9 ...
I was very grateful to IPPR North for inviting me to speak at their conference on the State of the North this morning - partly because it's nice to be asked, and partly because it allowed me to get my own ideas together about the Northern Powerhouse. It also allowed me to listen to John Prescott and Dan Jarvis, which was a slightly depressing experience, if only for the strained atmosphere of hope-over-experience. I'm not often exposed to Labour rhetoric these days and I didn't find it inspiring. The report IPPR North published is pretty important, setting out some of ...
The number of published volumes containing much in the way of sf short fiction from 1940 is rather finite. Having trawled the pages of the ISFDB, I believe that this is a comprehensive list of all of the collections and anthologies which it lists with three or more stories from that year. The best starting place is an anthology edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg, and published under three different titles: The Great Science Fiction Stories: Volume 2, 1940 (1979); Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction (second half, 1983); and Great Science Fiction Stories of ...
[IMG: WP_20150922_15_17_14_Pro r] No sooner had I posted about the volunteers of Maghull in Bloom taking over the plant maintenance in the courtyard between Meadows Leisure Centre and Maghull Town Hall – my previous post refers at:- than a task force of over a dozen volunteers, which Sheila and I had been drafted into, descended on the area and within a couple of hours it was looking much better. The photo above is a 'before' shot and I need to gain an 'after' shot as quite a few of the dead plants have now been removed and the weeds ...
Spectre (12a) Director ~ Sam Mendes Official Movie WebSite (Warning ~ contains spoilers!!) Spectre, the latest Bond movie and second installment of the franchise for director Sam Mendes does indeed seem to be haunted by its past. With more than a passing nod to previous incarnations of evil arch-enemies and their pets, even the oily tentacles in the opening credits reminds the audience of Octopussy (perhaps Monica Bellucci's sad widow character in the next movie)? The sombre pallet from Skyfall persists through this film and the feel is of a present set in the past. There are exotic locations, wonderful ...
I believe in power for local people. Will the North East's Devolution Deal deliver it? I can see a whole lot of good things made possible by the deal. These include greater local control over local investment and our transport infrastructure, planning the skills training for our workforce of tomorrow, and a chance to get control over the 160 million Euros pledged to County Durham by the European Union over five years but still wrapped up in Westminster red tape at present. It also includes around £30 million per year of additional funding – if we believe that will be ...
Don't tell anyone, but George Osborne probably let out a sigh of relief when Baroness Manzoor's fatal motion failed last night. Of course, it was inevitable that Labour peers would rather bravely abstain on the cuts to tax credits, as their elected counterparts did in July. And Jeremy Corbyn is probably skating on thin ice, given that the scandal of Labour abstaining in July put him where he is today. Eagle-eyed watchers will note that the Government majority was smaller than the number of active Labour peers. But what was most sickening, of course, was that more Labour peers actually ...
[IMG: House_of_Lords_chamber_-_toward_throne] As madcap, back-of-an-envelope schemes to reform the Lords are all the rage right now, I thought I'd use the opportunity to set out how I'd reform it. I may have done that before on this blog, but why not set it out once more just because I can. Quite simply, I'd get rid of it and replace it with a Senate. This new Senate would have around 300 members, each elected to a single 12-year term and then barred from seeking re-election to it. 100 members would be elected every four years, giving us a chamber that's constantly ...
[IMG: ALDC supports Liberal Democrat candidates and campaigners across the country] Following financial support from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd., ALDC and ASLDC are looking for two new part-time staff members to join our team. These are two exciting opportunities to be part of rebuilding our local government success in Scotland, Wales and England. Development Officer – 3 Days a Week – Location Flexible (England [...]
[IMG: Tax Credit image for Web story] The Liberal Democrats have been clear that the Government's proposed changes to tax credits are unacceptable. David Cameron explicitly ruled them out during the General Election yet now he is dead set on cutting support for people who are doing the right thing and going out to work for provide for their families. Last night's vote [...]
[IMG: Alan Reid, Lib Dem] Alan Reid, Lib Dem MP for Argyll and Bute until May 2015 and in his time Parliament's best chess player, has been selected to fight the Holyrood constituency of Argyll and Bute in the May 2016 elections. With slightly different boundaries from the Westminster constituency, the Scottish Parliament seat was held by the Liberal Democrats 1999-2007, when the SNP won it. In 2011, the Lib Dems finished fourth and need a 19% swing to gain the seat although on the slightly different Westminster seat boundaries and with Alan Reid's personal vote, in 2015 the Lib ...
There are no shortage of lessons for the Lib Dems to learn from our time in Coalition, but one of the most important is to understand the ability of the two main parties to work together to stitch us up like a kipper. The rule is simple. If the Lib Dems want to get across a particular interpretation of an event, and both Labour and Tories agree on a different interpretation, we're not going to do it. I'll give an example: tax cuts for the rich. For the 2012 budget, the Tories wanted to cut the top rate of tax ...
Leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim farron said after last night's votes in the House of Lords The Government has been forced into an embarrassing climb down. George Osborne must now go back to the drawing board and come back with plans to balance the books that don't simply attack working families who are already struggling to get by. We have sent a clear signal to the Tories that the British people will not accept this scale of attack on the vital support they need. Tonight's vote gives people hope, but the threat still looms large. It is utterly depressing ...
The Liberal Democrats current policy on fracking is to offer cautious support with the proviso that strict regulations are enforced to protect the environment. The argument that prevailed in 2013 was that the regulations were strict and could be effective, and that fracked gas has lower emissions than the LPG we are importing from the Middle East. This may or may not be true, but it misses the point. Two points, in fact. The first is that the regulations were already weak as a result of the split responsibilities between agencies, and are being made rapidly weaker by the new ...
You'll be pleased to hear that my answers to this aren't quite as long as those to the governance review, because there were not as many questions to answer as the review doesn't cover as broad an area. ( that said, I'm still putting them under a cut ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
This gets quite long and involved, guys. There were a lot of questions in the governance review paper, and I've answered every one of them. As such, my answers are ( under the cut ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
One of my guilty pleasures is watching "The Apprentice". It's back on our screens at the moment and this week's episode featured one of my favourite tasks - the scavenger hunt. The teams were asked to source nine different items, at the lowest possible cost, and deliver them back to the boardroom. This year's twist was that some members of ...
[IMG: The present Seaforth Docks and hinterland] The present Seaforth Docks and hinterland www.liverpoollep.org/core-sectors/superport/ I have commented on access to the Port of Liverpool at Seaforth numerous times and been very critical of the lack of communication about and the long-term planning for the virtually complete River Berth which will receive Post-Panamax size container ships. Firstly, there's a link at the top of this posting to Liverpool City Region/Liverpool Enterprise Partnership. Some of my most recent postings are also available below:- JUNE 2015 – AUGUST 2015 – SEPTEMBER 2015 – But as well as the article on ...
Francis Fukuyama's The End of History remains an insightful and compelling book but only because its author seems so unconvinced by his central thesis. I have reached the end of the End of History. Alright not the very end - I gave the end notes and the bibliography a miss. But I've now read the [...]
The Conservative party PR machine tried, for once with only modest success, to divert attention from the nuts and bolts of the consequences of the proposed reduction in tax credits. Instead they tried to focus attention on the constitutional issue of whether or not the Lords had the right to block or defer the changes. There was even talk of a constitutional crisis and, would you believe, the danger of involving the Queen in a political issue. Happily the Lords ignored them and went right ahead. However, the PR machine keeps on trying. Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP, son of the late ...
Tim Farron arrived in Greek island of Lesvos (Lesbos) this morning to speak with refugees arriving from Turkey, fleeing conflict in the Middle East. We can see here the numbers of dinghys and life jackets abandoned on the beaches. "Something I would barely risk on lake Windermere." 25 boats with around 50 ppl each arrived on this Lesvos beach yesterday. It was apparently quite clear before then. pic.twitter.com/B8SYGYo8ZZ — Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) October 27, 2015 Tim is due to be on Radio 5 live at 1245 today. Worth listening in.
Britain's tax credit row reached a milestone last night with a government defeat in the House of Lords. As I said last week, it doesn't show British politics in a flattering light. Then I complained about the failure of the government's critics to tackle the financial implications. But ignorance seems to be wilful on both sides. What is the row really about? First, we need to understand what tax credits are. There are two systems: Working Tax Credits (WTC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC). WTC amounts to £1,890 to £4,525 per annum, plus more for those with disabilities. It starts ...
There were 2 guest speakers at the North East Liberal Democrats' Regional Conference in Gateshead on Saturday: Lord Shipley (former leader of Newcastle City Council) and Sal Brinton, President of the Party. By all accounts, this was one of the most successful regional conferences in the North East. Lots of new members there, lots of members considerably younger than me as well. And some good
Yesterday's "fatal" motion by Liberal Democrat peer Zahida Manzoor to reject the governments tax credits was lost by 310 votes to 99 with the Labour bloc abstaining – another #Labstain on welfare. Tax credits debate in Lords Tax credits cuts "will have such a damaging and devastating impact on millions of peoples' lives."That was the verdict of one Liberal Democrats peer – who has provoked fury among Conservatives by introducing an unusual "fatal motion" in the Lords to try to prevent the cuts' introduction. Posted by Channel 4 News on Monday, 26 October 2015 In moving the fatal motion Baroness ...
[IMG: v brit coup] A Very British Coup, Chris Mullin I remember watching Channel 4's (fabulous) adaptation of A Very British Coup in 1988. Then it seemed almost wistfully nostalgic: hard-left Bennitism was on the retreat, as Neil Kinnock modernised the Labour party. Fast-forward a quarter of a century and Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader suddenly gives the book fresh currency. For this is the tale of a socialist, pacifist leader of the Labour party, Harry Perkins, committed to taking on the City and adopting unilateral disarmament, who suddenly finds himself propelled into Number 10 and fighting for survival ...
Last Wednesday (21 October 2015) was the regular 'full' meeting of Bury Council – the only time where all 51 Councillors meet together. Here is a quick report: Missing Coucnillors The meeting was unusual because the shortly into the meeting the entire Conservative Group of councillors 'walked out' and were absent for the rest of the meeting. The reason for their walk-out was a disagreement over questions they had asked to be put on the agenda which had been ruled out of order by the Mayor and the Coucnil's solicitor. You can read more about this at this Bury Times ...
Back in Liberal Democrat Newswire #65 I explained the importance of valence politics: Political scientists crunching the evidence over how people decide who to vote for (such as in Affluence, Austerity and Electoral Change in Britain) find that policy issues matter much less than 'valence' issues. That is, people don't decide who to vote for based on looking at policies and seeing how closely a party or candidate's policies match up to their own preferences. Rather, they lean on decisions over perceived competence on issues where different parties all have the same shared objective. For example, voting Conservative because you ...
Bury Coucnil is holding a special evening for is currently recruiting prospective adopters for children aged 4 years and above and for sibling groups. Their next information evening will be on Tuesday 3rd November 2015. Register your interest today and come along to find out about the benefits of adopting with Bury Council. On the evening, you will have the opportunity to listen to a 20 minute presentation about adopting with Bury Council and the process involved, followed by the opportunity to have a chat on a one-to-one basis with a Social Worker from the adoption team who will be ...
The right of the Labour Party has been complaining since Corbyn became front-runner to be the next Labour leader that once installed, Corbyn would go about having any MP who doesn't like him (i.e. almost all of them) deselected in order to make space for someone more, shall we say, malleable to the Corbyn plan. Jeremy himself has always denied this was on the cards; while I believe him when he says this, I don't think others in his inner circle are quite so cuddly about the whole prospect (one person in particular whose name rhymes with Shmon ShmcDonnell springs ...
Editor's Note: The party is currently running an essay competition for members of the Liberal Democrats, to submit 1000 words on the theme "What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today." The deadline for contributions is 2nd November. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to voice@libdemvoice.org.uk. Liberals by their very nature are people with inquiring minds who want to know as many facts as possible about whatever it is we are considering. You will rarely see a Liberal reading say the Daily Mail or Daily Mirror because they are little more than propaganda sheets ...
Bury Council's Children Young People and Culture Operational Services Team are hosting a Recruitment Day this Friday (30th October 2015) at the Longfield Suite (Memorial Room) The event aims to attract people looking for casual work who would be interested in working in one or more of the different jobs in schools across Bury and the work could lead to a permanent position where vacancies arise. Staff from the individual services will be on hand to explain what the work involves with support from RCT to help with the completion of application forms and DBS checks. There will also be ...
Whatever the outcome of November's spending review, uncertainties about the size and shape of the UK's research system are set to persist well into 2016. Last night, a capacity crowd of 300 scientists and friends of science poured into Conway Hall in London for the Science is Vital rally. Parallel gatherings took place in Glasgow, Swansea, York and around the country. Through comedy, music and talks by Jim Al-Khalili, Uta Frith, Simon Singh and many others, the message of the evening was loud and clear: in next month's spending review, George Osborne needs to reverse the damaging cuts of recent ...
The RSPCA has released this information with advice for pet owners for the Halloween and Bonfire Night period. The charity regularly receives hundreds of calls about fireworks in October and November, when bonfire night and Diwali celebrations are in full swing. [IMG: image011] Some great ideas to help your pet feel safe include: ● Using a Sounds Scary! CD to help dogs learn to be less afraid of loud noises. ● Use pheromone diffusers that can help dogs and cats feel calmer. ● Provide constant access to safe hiding places. ● Close windows and curtains and turn on the radio ...
The Great Dundee Charity Bake Off, in aid of the Dundee Botanic Garden Endowment Trust takes place later this week - here's the details! - Dundee's own Mary Berry and Gordon Ramsay compete live against each in a live Bake off- Venue: Hosted courtesy of Doubletree by Hilton, Dundee- Thursday 29th October 2015 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm- Host for the evening is World Award winning author and Chef James McIntosh who is a graduate from the University of Dundee- Special guest appearance from the Beano - Dennis the Menace- Various craft stands on the night- Ticketed events - tickets £15 ...
Never say in politics that you have seen it all, because something will come along to disprove that notion. Thus, last night Labour peers walked through the lobbies to oppose a proposal that would have killed George Osborne's tax credit cuts. The vast majority sat on their hands so as to enable the Tories to defeat the Liberal Democrats motion. Instead, Labour put forward their own motion that would just delay the cuts, leaving George Osborne the option of going ahead with them anyway. Meanwhile, Conservatives are all over the media complaining about an unelected House of Lords flexing its ...
Excellent article about the Tony Blair Fauxpology The Lords and tax credits: fact and myth - a helpful guide for those who are reading mainstream journos [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
2,600 families in St Albans will lose out under Conservative plans to cut tax credits. Figures produced by the House of Commons Library show over three million low-income working families currently in receipt of tax credits will see their entitlement reduced, as part of the Government's proposals. The change will mean a total loss of £2.9 million to families in St [...]
