There is some good news in connection with this section of the video. The Nuneaton avoiding line was partly reopened when the town's station was remodelled. Trains from Leicester to Birmingham now use its bridge over the West Coast Main Line. The Wensleydale branch is now run by volunteers as a heritage line: The Wensleydale Railway. Bedale signal box was one of three working British Rail signal boxes I was allowed into in my younger days. Plans to reopen the Great Central came to nothing. Watch part 1 and part 2 on this blog.
An action day in Dunston, Gateshead, today was not our original plan. We were meant to be piling into another ward but a technical hitch at the printers meant that the Focus for that ward was not ready in time. However, we had 5000 Focuses for Dunston, Lobley Hill and Teams to deliver so suddenly, we had a Dunston action day instead. The priority was to deliver Dunston Hill (which is part of a
My thanks to the person who I won't name for directing me today towards a Facebook site set up by Corbyn fan club Momentum. The first meeting of the Gateshead and Blaydon branch is being held on Monday and apparently the agenda is ruffling a few feathers in the ranks of the Labour party. You can visit the page on this link. I draw your attention to item 3: "How we intervene in the LP/TU Movement
When it comes to knife crime there appears to be two default settings that most Westminster politicians adopt. The first is to turn a blind eye to the issue for large periods of time. For example in London during the six week General Election period, 26th March to 8th May, there were 789 victims of serious youth violence, 1,231 victims of knife crime and 441 victims of knife crime with injury. That's 40 a day. Yet despite these figures the issue was almost entirely ignored. Few politicians campaigned on the issue or wanted to talk about it. The second position ...
At last, another novel that I feel I can nominate for the Retro Hugos alongside The Ill-Made Knight and Kallocain. It's a short book about a time-traveller who goes back to Renaissance Italy and finds that he cannot return to his own time due to a combination of local politics, equipment constraints and fuzzy memory. Any reader who is actually awake will spot the eventual punchline by the end of the second chapter, but Wellman has fun taking us there and unashamedly invokes various cliches of the time-hopping subgenre. A shame that this isn't better known, and I'm nominating it ...
In some ways, the decision on whether to back the Government's proposals to bomb Syria is one of the hardest the party has ever had to take. I'll be honest, I don't think that the case has been properly made in either long term strategy for Syria or in protecting the innocent civilians, many of whom are women and children. That is not to say that I can't be persuaded. This is no Iraq where for months beforehand I just instinctively felt that it was the wrong thing to do. It's a very complex set of circumstances and it's very ...
Introducing Doctor Who - An Unearthly Child... The first ever Doctor Who story begins with ordinary people who follow someone extraordinary to a blue box that's bigger on the inside than the outside and travels in time and space. The best idea in the world, and a stunning start: William Hartnell's fantastic Doctor; a mysterious girl who's both genius and hopeless, living in a junkyard; mind-expanding maelstroms of light and noise; prehistoric power struggles; throwing people into another time, throwing violence, dirt, role-reversals and every emotional and physical trial at them. Their world, and ours, will never be the same ...
Isabel Hardman explains: The answer is that the Tory party was desperate for ground troops to fight Labour, and with a small and often elderly membership, this was hard to come by. It seems that their desperation stopped them asking the sorts of questions that an organisation with the luxury of many footsoldiers should have asked. They'd risk taking on someone like Mark Clarke because they considered it less of a risk to being utterly swamped by Labour activists in key seats. But it's not just Mark Clarke, who denies bullying Johnson. Those involved in Tory youth politics say bullying ...
Been listening to superb @philosophybites podcasts - highly recommended— Danny Alexander (@dannyalexander) November 28, 2015They are very good podcasts and you can find them on the Philosophy Bites website.
Sat 28th
11:55
Liz Barker questions Government on transgender prisoners after death of Vicky Thompson
Last week, transgender woman Vicky Thompson died in the men's prison where she had been taken to serve her sentence. Ministry of Justice policy is to put trans prisoners in the gender they live as if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate. Obtaining a GRC can be a costly, difficult, bureaucratic process. Liz outlined some of the issues in an article for the Huffington Post: In Tara's case, she was put in a prison with 600 men, many of whom had committed violent offences and was eventually moved after a campaign which highlighted the risk to her safety. Jonathan Marks, ...
Labour are at war over Syria: how much damage is inflicted on them is at least partly down to where they land on the subject. But from where they are, I can't see any possible good outcome. The best one from their perspective would be a collective vote for the strikes on the proviso that certain key elements are kept to, most notably what comes next and how ISIS actually ends up being defeated. But this does not look possible given Corbyn and McDonnell's unbending opposition to such a position. So you're left with four other possibilities: a free vote ...
The debate about whether we target ISIS via bombs in Syria is a very odd one. Bombing is not the answer. And I'm not sure what the question is. I don't think the answer to the situation in Syria is to add more bombs and complexity to a situation which already has thousands of bombs going off and is hugely complex. It really is crazy to react hastily to the Paris outrage, just as it would be to react hastily to a London outrage or an outrage in my home town. People are being killed by the hundred all over ...
On Thursday alone, 5 of the Lib Dems' 8 MPs were in Oldham. Tim Farron had been there on Monday and Sal Brinton is there today. You never know who you might meet if you go there this weekend. Nick spoke to the Oldham Evening Chronicle, saying he thought Jane was fantastic and talking about the #libdemfightback As a party that took a real knock in the General Election this by-election gives us the opportunity to get out and speak to people again, explain who we are. I think Jane's getting a really positive response on the doorstep and I ...
Sat 28th
09:33
Labour's local council reorganisation lacks consensus, will push up council tax bills and undermine ...
The Welsh Minister for Public Services has failed to build a consensus for the reform of local Councils in Wales. His draft Bill will take money away from local services at a time of austerity and fails to address the fundamental changes needed to democratise councils. The significant cut in the number of Councillors combined with the omission of a reformed voting system means that the new councils will be less transparent, more unaccountable and remoter from voters. The projected cost of between £97 million and £246 million at a time of austerity, is an underestimate and will mean greater ...
Sat 28th
09:11
Health – Knowsley Borough may be 2nd worst in country but none of Merseyside's Council areas a...
[IMG: burger_vector_266368] The Liverpool Echo has the story on its web site – see link above
Congratulations to Lord Foster of Bath making his maiden speech in the House of Lords speaker:Lord Foster of Bath : 1 Lords debate ============================================Health – Motion to Take Note (26 Nov 2015) Lord Foster of Bath: (Maiden Speech) My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech and, of course, for the privilege of joining your Lordships' House. I hope I will be able to make a useful contribution. I am also grateful for the generous welcome I have received from all sides of the House, and ...
Watch the new fun (yet educational) video from CGP Grey: For a good debate on how accurate, or not, the argument in this video is, see the related Reddit thread.
I've written this in response to Tim Farron's article regarding domestic violence: This is a subject very close to my heart, as I have been through this and come out of the other end. The problems started in 2008 when my now ex-husband lost his mother. He subsequently took this out on me, both verbally and physically. As a result I lost all confidence; I lost my career, my self-esteem and I was totally alone. Had I told anyone we still would have been alienated; we needed help as a family, not judgement from those around us. Anyway, eventually I ...
Sat 28th
08:30
Getting things done - graffiti removal - Rosebery Street, Pitfour Street and Benvie Road
Following residents' complaints about graffiti requiring removal in Rosebery Street, Pitfour Street and Benvie Road (see below), I raised this with the City Council's Rapid Response Team : I have now been advised that disclaimers have been given to the property owners concerned to get their authority to allow the council to remove the graffiti (permission required as on privately-owned walls).
I have sent the following letter to Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats: Dear Tim Farron, I am writing to you as a member of the Liberals/Liberal Democrats for over 50 years, and, in a personal capacity, as President of Batley and Spen Liberal Democrats, to urge you, if it comes to a vote, to lead all eight of our MPs into the lobbies against the UK's joining in air strikes on Syria.I have read our five conditions and, frankly, they don't cut much ice. They smell of the obfuscation which is so typical of the other parties and ...
Congratulations to Paul Revell, whose Sock Monsters lead the LibDemVoice Fantasy Football League after Week 13, with 762 points. It's tight, though – just 62 points separate the current top 10. But let's also hear it for three players outside the top 10: Stephen Gillan's Stevienage F.C. and William Knipe's Team Extreme had the best week's performances, both with 93 points. An honourable mention goes to Marc Fairclough's Voices In My Head, with 92 points. [IMG: ldv 12] There are 219 players in total and you can still join the league by clicking here. * Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) ...
UK ISP boss points out massive technical flaws in Investigatory Powers Bill Women Refugees Are Being Attacked And No One Seems To Care En L'An 2000 is a series of visionary illustrations of the year 2000 from Paris' World Exhibition in 1900. Student president claims he was suspended for opposing PM's LGBT honour Slaves vow to stop gigs if they see groping in crowd Charles Stross Reveals How His Laundry Files World Is About to Change Forever [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
This is number one of what may or may not be an occasional series of posts, about what people outside the party get completely wrong about the Lib Dems. In this case, I want to talk about the pat summary one gets from the Guardian's less-well-informed columnists, and from people who like to act like [...]
I popped in to the citizenship ceremony taking place in Gateshead Civic Centre on Wednesday. One of my constituents was to be there, having his new British citizenship recognised. I think these are great ceremonies and would love to see them extended to all 16 year olds to mark their adulthood and their citizenship (though we also need to lower the voting age to 16). I was just getting out my
I have no idea who had the Lib Dem Press Office Twitter account tonight, but they need to have it more often. They had certainly had their Weetabix this morning and took on all-comers: I think this might be why our canvassing data was so off. pic.twitter.com/nJpGJ3jNDl — Phil Reilly (@phil_reilly) November 27, 2015 @PoliticoPhilf @timfarron @haveigotnews not many chances to do that at 9pm on BBC, but maybe a few will want to find out more about us now — Lib Dem Press Office (@LibDemPress) November 27, 2015 @brianstokes92 I know. We should have done something normal, like gone ...
