Embed from Getty Images Taken at Brentford, where the canal joins the Thames, in 1934
UPDATED DETAILS. Conservative seat. Cause: Death. LD candidate- Julian Newman.
Our latest email newsletter to residents of the Whickham area of Gateshead was published tonight and can be read on this link.
Embed from Getty Images I would recommend reading this Christmas message from Jennie Rigg. We should all be nice to each other – is the message. Jennie really is a National/Yorkshire treasure, font of gritty wisdom and general all-round good egg to boot! This particular passage had me cackling with hysterical laughter: (I wish) That my fellow bloggers, tweeters, and commenters on Lib Dem Voice start to give each other a bit of a break. You don't NEED to leap in all guns blazing and straw men a-gogo every single time someone says something that slightly bothers you. Sometimes it's ...
Although it isn't a Liberal Democrat (or Alliance, SDP or Liberal) party election broadcast, this is the one that had the biggest immediate impact on me when I saw it. Five of the best political advertsRead about five of the best political adverts and what made them so special. more It's a tremendously well put together piece, using music in a powerful and ironic way (at a time when Labour was trying to wrest the reputation of being the patriotic party from the Conservatives) and built around showing the viewer the leading figures of another party celebrating at their own ...
Personally, 2015 was brilliant - ushering a small person through their first months & years of life is a fantastic privilege which only keeps getting better. A picture you say? Oh go on then. But only the one, I'm very shy of "creating" an online identity for my daughter before she's able to do that herself. Alongside this, politically 2015 was pretty much an unmitigated disaster - the Lib Dems faced an electoral apocalypse and are now, rather more quietly than the Labour Party, having a long protracted debate about what we mean, what we say and what the point ...
[IMG: New Year Appeal] The New Year is an ideal time to remind your members and supporters of the battle ahead in your ward, especially for those with election in 2016. No matter how successful, all Liberal Democrat local parties need extra funds and this letter is designed to let supporter know the difference you will make. Don't forget [...]
Looking forward to BBC1's offerings for Christmas Day evening, 1977. It looks thin today, but then I have a feeling it may have looked a bit thin at time too.
Finally had a chance to sit down and repair the site after this weekend's hacking, and decided to take the opportunity to give it a whole new look. Hopefully all the problems have been fixed now, but please let me know if you spot anything out. Because of Christmas and everything else, there are unlikely to be any new posts here until 2016, so I'll take this chance to wish you all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading, sharing, commenting and everything else during the past twelve months, and hopefully there'll be more of the ...
[IMG: Merry Christmas from ALDC!] The ALDC office is closed from the end of 23rd December 2015 and will reopen on the morning of Monday 4th January 2016. As the office is unstaffed our phone and emails sent directly to staff members won't be answered until the New Year. However, if you have any urgent advice or IT related queries during this [...]
Several years out from working in hospitality/retail I am starting to recover from my primal loathing of Christmas, such that this year I am prepared to indulge in some Christmas wishes. These are specific to the party, and not connected with my general and ongoing wishes for world peace, vast amounts of cash, and unlimited gin and brandy. I think those three can pretty much be taken as read. This year I wish:That the media would pay less attention to Labour tearing itself apart and more to the horrible things the government is doing, so that people realise just how ...
Today the European Court of Justice ruled that minimum alcohol pricing is contrary to EU law if other tax options exist. From the BBC: A legal challenge was brought by the SWA, which argued the Scottish government's legislation breached European law. The European court ruling said: "The Court of Justice considers that the effect of the Scottish legislation is significantly to restrict the market, and this might be avoided by the introduction of a tax measure designed to increase the price of alcohol instead of a measure imposing a minimum price per unit of alcohol." It added: "The court states ...
Most of our local charity shops collect used stamps - foreign, UK commemorative or just plain "ordinary" stamps - and sell them on to dealers. Please keep all those stamps you get at Xmas or indeed any time of year and take them in. Alternatively you can drop them off to Paul Hulbert at 35 Blaisdon (he's collecting them for Cancer Research) or leave them at Dodington Parish Council for him to collect.
The Rutland & Stamford Mercury wins Headline of the Day with this disappointing story.
Tackling inequality is one of my greatest passions, it quite literally gets me out of bed in the morning. It's also quite well established now that the more representative decisions making bodies are, the more all of us benefit, no matter if we belong to an underrepresented group or not. The past decade has been a historical time in politics for minorities and activist groups have many proud achievements to celebrate in the name of diversity (yet of course, we still have so very far to go), but there's one spectrum of diversity that's not doing so well lately, and ...
This linear piece of green space which runs all the way from Thornton to Seaforth is under threat from a plan by Highways England (previously known as the Highways Agency) who want to build a road right down the middle of it to service the docks. [IMG: The busy A5036 thunders over the Leeds Liverpool Canal in Litherland but the oasis of Rimrose Valley Country Park sits the other side of this manic highway to Seaforth Docks.] The busy A5036 thunders over the Leeds Liverpool Canal in Litherland but the oasis of Rimrose Valley Country Park sits the other side ...
Few will shed a tear at today's news that minimum alcohol pricing has been ruled illegal under European competition law. While it was a legitimate attempt to deal with a serious problem of alcohol-related harm and cheap supermarket sales, it was a messy solution that would have caused as many problems as it would have solved. However, there are other solutions needing to be discussed. Some relatively unheralded research has taken place by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), highlighting some of the inconsistencies in taxation and suggesting solutions. Their work isn't perfect – in particular, it doesn't seem to ...
Wed 23rd
10:55
Who's defending liberal values - the Department of Education or the Evangelical Alliance?
[IMG: John Wesley teaching at Sunday school] A recent press release from the Christian body the Evangelical Alliance seeks to draw attention to a current government consultation about extensions to the UK-wide 'counter-extremism strategy'. In particular, it highlights a new system for regulation of 'out-of-school education'. Many readers may be aware of a number of recent news items regarding poor-quality and harmful teaching and premises at informal and unregulated schools. To some extent, this is being linked in the public mind with so-called 'Islamism'- but the implications go much further. Three factors seem to have triggered the EA's interest: A ...
Bizarre yet with a twisted logic that has a certain sanity about making people understand the reality of their actions: Roger Fisher's idea for making the decision to use nuclear weapons less abstract (from March 1981 @BulletinAtomic): pic.twitter.com/h7arl36sKE — Stephen Schwartz (@AtomicAnalyst) December 2, 2015
Information for residents on opening hours for local services, and helplines over the Christmas period. Bury Council Customer Contact Team (253 5353) All but essential services at Bury Council are closed over the Christmas and New Year period: The Customer Contact Team will be closed from 5pm on Wednesday 23 December until 8.45am on Monday 4 January 2016. Adult Care Connect and Direct one stop shop at Textile Hall will be closed from Thursday 24 December until 10am on Monday 4 January. You can make enquiries by telephone only on Tuesday 29, Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 December between 9am ...
Just to wish all the residents of Holyrood Ward a very merry Christmas and very best wishes for 2016. We are taking a break from emails for a couple of weeks, but the regular emails start back again in the new year. Can we take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support, ideas and local issues which have been much appreciated. Steve, Tim, Mary [IMG: Tims card]
After complaints from residents, Bury Council have very kindly extended the consultation period on their major Bury New Road proposals by a whole week to 30th December 2015........ This is only for online responses as Prestwich Library is closed for written responses. The proposals from the Council are to make Bury New Road single lane traffic from Fairfax Road down to Aldi. (i.e. 2 lanes not 4 lanes). More details here. Option A is for single line traffic, together with bus lay-bys, extra parking bays, a small amount of wider pavement, and cycle lanes between the parking bays and traffic. ...
The Council is now to proceed with putting additional yellow lines around the junction area of Nursery Road and Lilac Grove, just behind the 'Kids Planet' nursery on Bury Old Road. The lines have been called for by residents for some time now, and the delay has been with the original planning conditions for the nursery which have now been resolved. There were no objections to the scheme when it was advertised to neighbours and the new lines will be implemented as soon as practical. Thank you to the people who have raised this with us. [IMG: Screenshot 2015-12-23 09.30.35] ...
The Libertine is back! For those of you who don't know, The Libertine is Liberal Youth's online blogging platform. It is quite similar to LDV in that its articles are written by Libdem members, its youth members. This means that we, like LDV, are always looking for new submissions and fresh topics for discussion. As the title suggests, The Libertine has fallen out of use for a significant period of time. The LY exec asked for applications for the positions of co-editor, and selected myself and Tom Davies. We can be found at joanne.ferguson@liberalyouth.org or tom.davies@liberalyouth.org. If you have any ...
Labour's handling of the Welsh NHS has come under sustained criticism in the past, both from the opposition parties in the Assembly and also from the Prime Minister. Essentially, despite spending more per head here than on the other side of Offa's Dyke, and despite the hard-working, dedicated and under-resourced staff, patients in Wales are having to wait longer for treatment in a whole range of areas than their counterparts in England. Now a Labour MP has rejoined the fray with her own criticism, describing diagnostic waiting times for a series of medical conditions in Wales as "shocking and simply ...
So I've written a spoiler free review of the Force Awakens, a post about why its better than the prequels and why its a step forward for women in sci-fi. But there is one scene I want to talk about but which demands particular care with regards to spoilers. If you've seen the film, you'll [...]
Wed 23rd
09:02
Is Europe's political centre is being eaten by the radical left and nationalist right?
The article you are currently reading was triggered by Paul Mason's piece in the Guardian yesterday, "Podemos: how Europe's political centre is being eaten by the radical left and nationalist right" in which he discussed the idea that both the far-right and the far-left are becoming so powerful that continuing to have two parties who are essentially centrist (at least in terms of execution) is becoming less tenable. It seems that moderate social democrats will someday have to merge with liberal conservatives into one party, says Mason, a party whose function would be to act as a pro-western, basically liberal ...
Here's a round-up of links to Christmas opening times and other information you might find helpful during the holiday period. Contacting the council The South Glos customer services contact centre will be closed from Christmas Eve afternoon (from 1pm) until 8:45 am on Wednesday 30 December 2015. The offices will also be closed on 1 January 2016. Please note that the adult care contact centre will be open until 5pm on Christmas Eve. When the offices are closed calls will be diverted to a service which deals only with emergencies.One Stop Shops will be closed from Christmas Eve afternoon (from ...
Newly launched for the Liberal Democrat spring conference in York is the Conference Access Fund, an initiative to help people who would otherwise not be able to afford the costs of conference: [IMG: Lib Dem conference access fund logo] The fund consists of a contribution from the core Conference budget as well as donations from party members. Any contributions made by party members are ring-fenced for this purpose only and where applicable, any unused donations will be carried over to the next conference. All applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. If there is high demand, priority will be ...
On November 26th I made a Freedom of Information request to see the report that had gone to the Corporate Management Team driving the current proposals to raise the hours and cut the pay of classroom assistants across the county. At the time I made the request the proposals had already been announced to Headteachers (though not governors). Letters had already been sent to Teaching Assistants setting out how much they could expect to lose. I thought it was time for everyone to understand exactly what had motivated these proposals, and the degree of political control that was being exercised ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat Tavish Scott MSP yesterday accused SNP Ministers of 'operating in the shadows' over their failure to extend Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation to organisations currently exempt. Mr Scott, who is a member of the Public Audit Committee, has slammed the Scottish Government for its secretive multi-million-pound deals with private firms delivering schools,... More Scott Slams 'Shadowy SNP' Over Freedom of Information
I spoke on Wave 102 News yesterday about my concerns regarding a recent licensing decision regarding the proposed Caird Bar and Grill. You can listen to the interview by clicking 'play' below :
Liberal Democrat Holyrood candidate for Edinburgh West Alex Cole-Hamilton expressed satisfaction today after the SNP/Labour administration running Edinburgh City Council decided to 'put on hold' their announced plans to extend city centre parking charges to Sundays. The proposal was due to be put to the Transport Committee on January 12th but the council have now... More Cole-Hamilton Forces Parking Charges Rethink
The Israeli Ambassadot to the United States, Ron Dermer, is sending out Christmas presents in his host country. Nothing unusual about that, one might think, given that the US has been Israel's staunchest ally for decades and is the major impediment to the recognition of the State of Palestine. But these are not ordinary Christmas [...]
28 Pictures That Prove 2015 Wasn't A Completely Terrible Year Calls for David Cameron to step in after US bars British Muslim family from trip Apple voices concern about new UK surveillance laws Oh for fuck's sake If Classic Children's Books Were Written Today Why the recent planned adaptation of A Box of Delights was not filmed [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The long, incredibly tortuous, and fascinating process of creating a Chinese font Amazing! (tags: alphabets China ) US bars British Muslim family from holiday trip of a lifetime How to win hearts and minds. (tags: uspolitics ) The best and worst of European political Christmas cards @PoliticoRyan reports. (tags: eu christmas )
