A list of all the videos in this series so far can be found under the Lancashire post.
A footnote to my Boxing Day post about Network Rail's plan to close a level crossing in Market Harborough - well, Little Bowden actually. As I explained in that post, I am not convinced that the crossing is half as dangerous as claimed. But such crossings are clearly on the way out and, given this, it is odd that several little used rural crossings have been replaced before this one. Harborough's Conservative MP, Sir Edward Garnier, takes a different view. The other day he told the Harborough Mail: "This is a seriously dangerous foot crossing on a very busy stretch ...
Manchester Airport has told us that, for routine maintenance, runway 1 will be closed and runway 2 used for up to 38 nights (10pm to 6am) in 2016. You can see the dates and details here. Runway 2 flights can be noisier for some local residents.
'What to Look for in Winter' comes from a time when children were expected to relate sensuously and intellectually to the great profusion of life around us.Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk and admirer of this blog's hero T.H. White, has written a terrific article on the New Statesman. 'What to Look for in Winter' is a Ladybird book with illustrations by Charles Tunnicliffe (who designed the dustwrappers for three similar titles by Malcolm Saville) that was first published in 1959. She writes: Books of this kind were designed to build young naturalists with an in-depth knowledge of ...
How this man behaves is vitally important to our City Yesterday I issued a press release outlining some proposals that the Lib Dems have for dealing with changes that we believe will need to be looked at in the changed ... Continue reading →
Mon 4th
20:04
We should plan for an emergency before we have it - that means Ludlow residents must be the first re...
It has been a terrible and torrid time in northern areas of our country. Storm after storm has poured unprecedented levels of rain on saturated landscapes. Homes and dreams have been wrecked by the floodwaters. Here in South Shropshire we have had not had flooding problems in recent weeks. But that doesn't mean we should... Continue reading We should plan for an emergency before we have it - that means Ludlow residents must be the first response in flood protection →
[IMG: Membership of reformed EU seen as vital to economic security: The claim that British membership of a reformed EU is vital to Britain's economic security is backed by an overwhelming majority of economists in a Financial Times survey.] You can sign up to back the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign here. For the full story, see Membership of reformed EU seen as vital to economic security (free registration required to see full story).
The Liberal Democrats should cut their spending by moving their headquarters out of London, argues Simon McGrath. "Pickering, North Yorkshire, pulled off protection by embracing the very opposite of what passes for conventional wisdom. On its citizens' own initiative, it ended repeated inundation by working with nature, not against it." Geoffrey Lean explains how one town that beat the floods. Terence Fane-Saunders dissects Oliver Letwin's inadequate apology. James O'Malley wants the left to stop retweeting bullshit. "If it looks completely at home in this northern European setting, that's because a mosque has stood here, roughly 20 minutes' drive south-west of ...
[IMG: propr] In 'all of this has happened before and will happen again' (British politics edition) we've already got people suggesting – apparently seriously – that the way to get a better electoral system is through an electoral pact. It's one of those ideas that sounds good when you first come up with it, but then falls apart if given any sort of serious analysis, and time spent trying to make it happen is time that could be used much more productively doing just about any other form of campaigning for electoral reform. Trying to put together an electoral pact ...
We have received this from the council Disruption to Recycling Collections - update: Monday 4 January We have been advised that staff working for our recycling contractor, Kier, have begun industrial action in the form of an overtime ban. As a result of this, if you were due to have your recycling collected on Saturday 2nd January there may still be some disruption to your recycling and food
The chilling pictures published by ISIS/Daesh of a small child thought to be British, proudly brandishing a gun, are symptomatic of a worrying trend by political extremists to try to "normalise" the phenomenon of children bearing arms, supposedly in the defence of a particular cause. I've seen examples on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict [...]
I still have a few 2015 books to write up (though finished the first of 2016 this morning). Moon over Soho is second in the Peter Grant series of novels about an occult policeman in London, of which I very much enjoyed the first a few months ago. I liked this one a lot too; I had hoped for more adventures with the personified London rivers, but I am happy to settle for jazz-loving brain-eating monsters. The narrator gets very convincingly grasped in the clutches of the bad guys without realising it. The ending is suitably downbeat and signals a ...
Previously... After some snowmen for Christmas, why not a party with food and dancing for New Years'... Introducing... The fifth Doctor's full house. The TARDIS is quite full during the show's nineteenth season, with no fewer than four companions aboard in the form of the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. Three of whom are aliens and one an Australian. The TARDIS hasn't had a crew of four since Seasons One and Two, when Ian and Barbara, the Doctor and Susan followed by Vicki made a cosy family unit of sensible parents with teenager and wacky grandpa. The dynamic for the ...
As has become obvious to anyone who has read a newspaper or watched a news channel over the past 5 years, the NHS is straining under the... Read more "The liberal case for the need to champion social services"
As has become obvious to anyone who has read a newspaper or watched a news channel over the past 5 years, the NHS is straining under the weight of demand. With accident and emergency departments swamped, critical staffing levels and insufficient number of beds the national health provider is struggling to provide the excellent level of care that it is famed for. Alongside this, within the social services sector a perfect storm of an aging population, increased numbers of people living with long-term conditions, squeezed local authority budgets, discrepancies between the fees paid by private clients and local councils, high ...
The Liberal Democrat manifesto for the Scottish elections this spring needs to be a cracker or we will not be noticed, even by the 5 per cent of voters who are thinking of supporting us. So let me suggest a list of radical ideas. First, we should be arguing for a 3p rise in income tax to raise around £1bn for public services. Just about every day there is an example of our schools, colleges, health and care services, social work departments, police and fire brigades, libraries, sports fields etc. being short of money. And George Osborne is only half ...
Despite a positive meeting with Gatley Village Partnership and Northern Rail a few weeks ago, Cllr Keith Holloway has received another complaint of unacceptable behaviour from Northern Rail ticket inspectors. On this occasion the ticket office was open at Gatley but the queues were so long that people would have missed their train if they'd queued up to buy a ticket. There was no opportunity to buy a ticket on the train and at Piccadilly Northern Rail's G4S enforcers were issuing Gatley travellers with "Failure to Purchase" notices – two notices leads to a fine. Keith said "It is the ...
[IMG: The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above I can't really express who sad and indeed angry I am to see the former library in Aintree Village being sold off for housing. It was a lovely library, a real heart of the community facility for Aintree Village and Melling. [IMG: This is former Aintree Ratepayer Councillor Terry Baldwin speaking at a meeting to try to save the library. ] This is former Aintree Ratepayer Councillor Terry Baldwin speaking at a meeting to try to save the library. It was great to campaign to try to ...
[IMG: New Year Resolutions] In the last eight months a lot has been said, and written, about Lib Dem 'fightback' and rightly so. 'Fighting back', from last May's dreadful General Election result, is what we must do to ensure that Britain has the strong liberal force that it needs. Fightback got off to a good start. 20,000 new Party [...]
A fantastic initiative has just been started by someone I know - it's called "Tip The Board" - the idea is to get more people from different backgrounds onto boards of companies and voluntary organisations. It's one of my ambitions to eventually be a board member and this initiative is definitely for me and I've signed up. You can read more at the website http://www.tiptheboard.com/ and a description of how Dotty Winters can help you with getting onto boards on Standard Issue For me it's about being in the right room, the right room to make the decisions. For years ...
Mon 4th
13:29
Bankers – Can the Treasury Select Committee hold them to account when Government simply lets t...
Can we have any confidence in Government at all since they and the Financial Conduct Authority decided to simply let bankers, who utterly destroyed our economy, off the hook? Does government not understand how much we distrust bankers and that we want them brought to book for the misery they caused via their casino banking antics? Will Andrew Tyrie MP, Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, rise to the challenge set by the Guardian newspaper? We can only hope that he will but the pressures on him to keep a low profile on this massive issue will be huge. ...
Councillor John Dodd and a Flooded Botanic Gardens Lib Dem Councillor John Dodd says he has been inundated with calls from residents, about the water damage to Botanic Gardens Churchtown and the properties that back onto them, Verulam Road and Merlewood Avenue. Lib Dem Councillor John Dodd has this morning (January 4) arranged to meet Sefton Council 's Principal Parks Officer and Chair of the Botanic Gardens Community Association to see what can be done. Councillor Dodd said "I contacted Sefton Council and was on site twice on Boxing Day to have a look for myself and to talk to ...
One of the hangovers from my time editing Lib Dem Voice is that I have Google Alerts set up for "liberal democrat" and "lib dem" to see what news coverage the party is getting/generating. It used, back in the days when the party was a substantial force, to be a busy read. Not now. I've just done a trawl of the backlog from my Christmas break — 24 alerts between 23 Dec 2015 – 3 Jan 2016: [IMG: ld inbox] The biggest generator of Lib Dem-related news is, unsurprisingly, Lib Dem Voice — good for the team now running it, ...
The summer of 2014 was a particularly busy one. In addition to the usual constituency and regional based activities I was also engaged in a series of meetings with the Finance Minister and her officials in an effort to get a budget deal for the Welsh Liberal Democrats. The history of these deals has been chequered during this fourth Assembly. Labour do not have a majority so they need the support of at least one other party to get their budget through. They will not deal with the Conservatives so that just leaves two other possible partners. At first, the ...
Paddy Ashdown has told the Independent that the growing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the wake of the Saudi executions carried out over the weekend is "a far greater danger" than ISIL. He said that the UK Government should be robust about calling the Saudis out for their actions: Lord Ashdown said Saudi Arabia's sudden mass execution of prisoners - including the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and a number of young political protesters - may have been intended to derail the ongoing Syrian peace talks in Vienna. These executions are deeply, deeply destabilising to the very ...
We wanted to honour those Liberal Democrats that our readers felt were true stars of 2015, which has been one of the toughest years in our party's history. Over the past few days, we have sought out nominations and now have a rather impressive list that we'll be publishing in instalments during this week. Here is the seventh part. Their names come with the comments made about the contribution they have made. Some are parliamentarians, some are councillors, most are grassroots activists. Let's celebrate them and the many others who are fighting fto keep that Liberal Democrat flame alive. These ...
[IMG: crystal ball] I have occasionally been known to risk a tiny amount of the minuscule credibility I possess by putting forward some predictions for the political year ahead. While there's a temptation to do that because not only does it allow me to put a post up now, it gives me the chance to write at least one more at the end of the year reviewing them, I'm not going to. The present state of politics in Britain and elsewhere is so febrile and chaotic that making predictions for what will happen in the next couple of weeks seems ...
[IMG: Willie Rennie factory] Willie Rennie kicks off election year in Scotland by setting out the case for a bright, green liberal Scotland. Speaking on a visit to a factory in his Fife constituency, he said: The last five years in the Scottish Parliament have been dominated by independence. The next five years should be dominated by a bright, green and liberal programme for Scotland: With Scotland returning to work today it should signal a change of focus for our parliament: it's time to get on with the day job. Children and young people deserve a good quality education with ...
[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 [...]
One of the adverse effects of the awful General Election result has been a significant drop in Party income, as we are now of much less interest to potential donors and people who wish to exhibit and hold fringe meetings at Conference. That means that we have to look at radical measures to cut costs so that we can deliver the maximum political effect on our reduced income. One area we should look at very closely is the location of Party HQ and whether we need have staff in an expensive central London location. The easy answer would be to ...
The job description of a blogger is that they predict - especially political bloggers. And especially for their first post of the year. I had rather a good record in 2014, including calling the close result of the Scottish referendum, and felt rather proud of that. So it was with a heavy heart that I looked back to my first post of last year to see that I had confidently predicted that the Lib Dems would win 39 seats. In short, the trick is not to extrapolate trends. The knack has to be to see beyond the trends. My only ...
Bulgaria's 'milk-induced longevity' is apparently a thing. The map below was created by Foreign Policy who plotted "the most common Chinese-language Baidu query for each European nation" to get an insight into what the people of the middle kingdom think about Europe. Baidu is China's largest search engine and it's auto-complete function seems to work a [...]
With the Labour Party on the verge of civil war and with Labour MPs increasingly unhappy at the direction their new leader is taking them in, it may seem the most natural thing in the world for the Liberal Democrats to seek common cause with Labour refuseniks. Indeed that is precisely what Vince Cable is proposing. In the Independent, the former Business Secretary is reported as saying that the Liberal Democrats and Labour MPs opposed to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership will have to "work together" to create an "effective opposition" to the Government. Vince is absolutely right of course in saying ...
Before all the Corbynistas jump in here and say I'm just nitpicking for things to attack Jeremy over, hear me out. Back before Corbyn became leader but such an outcome was increasingly obvious I stated that I thought he would enjoy a honeymoon period. A time when his straight talking take on numerous issues would have significant cut through. Why this hasn't happened is a legitimate question. Even Ed Miliband had a honeymoon with the public of sorts – back in 2010/2011 when his anti-cuts stuff found an audience and Labour polled in the mid-40s. And whatever I think of ...
The South Gloucestershire BIG Spring Clean 2016 runs from 1 March - 30 April 2016. This is a chance for community groups, Parish Councils and residents to help clean up their neighbourhood and open spaces. You don't have to in a formal group - you could get together with friends, family or neighbours. Or you might be part of a group that is already taking part in voluntary clean-ups during the year but want to take the opportunity of the BIG Spring Clean to play a part in a bigger campaign. Free gloves, refuse sacks, litter pickers and hoops are ...
I'm suggesting five New Year's resolutions for Liberal Democrats. Here, in very short and sweet from, is number 4. Be very radical on diversity We simply cannot go on with the embarrassment of our parliamentarians being as white and male as they are. It's time to follow the example of Justin Trudeau and Nicola Sturgeon and Just Do It. It's not just about processes, it's about an unshakeable commitment to delivering diversity at every single level of the party from local party committees right up there that has to be driven by everyone in leadership positions. I think that measures ...
From the City Council : THE ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984 : SECTION 14(1) THE DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL AS TRAFFIC AUTHORITY being satisfied that traffic on the road should be prohibited by reason of BT duct laying works being carried out HEREBY PROHIBIT the driving of any vehicle in West Henderson's Wynd / Douglas Street junction, Dundee. This notice comes into effect on Wednesday 6 January 2016 for 5 working days. Pedestrian thoroughfare will be maintained. Alternative routes are available via Blinshall Street / Lochee Road / Park Street. For further information contact 433168. Director of City DevelopmentDundee City Council ...
Lib Dem Peer Shirley Williams has written in the Belfast Telegraph of the problem of widespread misunderstanding about how the EU works and what it actually does. She calls for a more direct role for national parliaments in how the EU works and for EU Commissioners to appear before national parliaments to answer questions as Ministers do. She also calls for a European news channel: Europe badly needs continent-wide communication. The main public broadcasters in the EU should be able to construct between them a European channel reporting not only on the European Parliament, but also on significant developments in ...
Gender recognition, some basic demands - this is excellent and very clear Collapsed Elland road bridge 'beyond repair' - FAO @brighouse247 @CharlotteGore @Calderdale_LD What Science Says About Using Physical Force To Punish A Child Beautiful, well-written piece about polyamory - this is certainly how it works for me [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
We might already be a few days into January but it's this week that 2016 really gets going. With that in mind I'll be sharing some ideas on what the party's priorities should be for the new year through this week, starting with our number one problem; diversity. So without further ado. Resolution 1: Do something serious about diversity. [IMG: image.jpg] I'll start this with a supposition, or two. Firstly, that the fact that we have an all-white, all-male parliamentary party is simply unacceptable, represents a serious threat to our status as a national party and has to be dealt ...
