Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, on behalf of the Lib-Dems in Broxtowe. 1. By Elections As I reported last week there will be two by elections in Broxtowe, both taking place on Thursday 18th February. In Toton and Chilwell Meadows the Lib-Dem candidate will be Graham Heal, a Toton resident. Graham stood as an independent last year and performed very well, and he has now joined the Liberal Democrats. The Conservative candidate lives in Beeston North and the Labour candidate lives in Stapleford. UKIP didn't even manage to find someone ...
So, four weeks into this 'walking around vaguely purposefully' thing and, much to my surprise, I'm still managing my ten thousand steps a day. It seemed like quite a lot when I started and, unless I make the effort, it still does. I can pick up an easy thousand or so walking from Ipswich station to my office, and another thousand back in the evening. Walking for half an hour around the town centre at lunchtime is another four thousand or so, and I can pick up two thousand or so in my office, photocopying something, making coffee, fetching a ...
An Introduction to Hedgelaying course is being run as part of the Heart of Teesdale Landscape Partnership Field Boundary Programme, which is aimed at anyone keen to gain a greater appreciation of ancient rural crafts and practical conservation, and will take place at Deepdale Wood Nature Reserve, Barnard Castle on Friday 12 and Saturday 13 February 2016. The two day course will go through the history and value of hedgerows, while explaining how to use and maintain traditional hand tools such as axes, saws and billhooks to manage the hedgerow. Participants will also get plenty of practice of hedgelaying in ...
Let's begin with where I stand. I have long been in support of Scotland moving towards something close to full fiscal autonomy. I think Holyrood should be almost entirely responsible for raising what it spends. I've said repeatedly that I don't think the UK parties have been ambitious enough in their promises of further powers. Though the Smith Commission comes fairly close. I think there's room to devolve corporation tax, and I would probably devolve national insurance. I hate the Barnett formula. It is crude, has backed the debate about Scottish finance into a corner, and does nothing to incentivise ...
Karl Popper was one of the most important liberal thinkers of the 20th century, as much for his development of an evolutionary understanding of human knowledge as for his more overtly political books. For an excellent short introduction to his work see the book by Bryan Mageee. In 1988 Popper took part in three programmes for Channel 4 under the title Uncertain Truth. In the first one he was interviewed by Ernst Gombrich, and by John Eccles and then Anthony Quinton in the next two. Those programmes are on Youtube. Each is split in two, there are six videos. This ...
John Stones is, without doubt, an immensely talented footballer. In fact, I think he'll develop into the outstanding defender of his generation, not just in Britain but in the World. He's that good. He's also young, and immature. That means he makes some bad decisions, some of the time, and some of those bad decisions cause problems. That's to be expected and part of the price of developing young talent is watching them learn from those mistakes. Today, he made a massive mistake that handed Swansea their first goal. Yes, Tim Howard is a moron with the reflexes of a ...
Time passes by quickly. Too quickly more often than not. But pass by it does all the same. Exactly 3 years ago to this day on the 24th January 2013, I wrote this blog post about finally making the leap into exploring my family history after years of prevarication. Since then, those tentative first few steps into my own genealogy have turned into a project so vast and never-ending that it has become a significant and very happy part of my life. Shamefully, I have not committed as much of that research and learning down in writing in this blog ...
Well done to the Central Somerset Gazette, a now one on the judges, for winning Headline of the Day. And thanks to reader who suggested it.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 447th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (17-23 January, 2016), together with a hand-picked quintet, you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. A welcome Labour council gain by Mark ...
In 2014 for the 1939 Retro Hugos, we did not have a Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) category because there were not enough nominations to make the category viable. (I confess I had not heard of most of the possible nominees.) The Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category included four Orson Welles radio plays and a TV adaptation of R.U.R. (which cannot have been seen by very many of those nominating). The War of the Worlds scored a crushing victory, with 813 first preference votes out of 1058. But there was no cinematic representation on the final ballot - The ...
Did you know Peterborough City Council electoral wards are set to change this year?
Just leaving this here:
Willie Rennie has gained the backing of the Scottish Trades Union Congress for is stance on low wages and poor working conditions at Amazon's depot in his Fife constituency. He's also challenged Nicola Sturgeon over massive grants paid to the giant company when they treat their employees so badly. From the Sunday Mail: But Rennie said Amazon shouldn't receive any more money until they increases employees' pay to the "living wage" of £8.25 an hour - deemed to be the minimum income necessary for workers to meet their basic needs. The Scottish Lib Dems leader said: "The slipshod manner in ...
Originally posted on not-yet-dr-krishna: I am currently under doctor's orders not to drink, so I'm in the mood to ruin everybody else's enjoyment with a review of the dangers of alcohol to health and society. As soon as I started researching this blog, I realised that this would end up being a huge piece, so...
Good news from Liberal Democrat Party President Sal Brinton, contained in her January blog post: I want to set up a monthly webinar with members - so watch out for details, and do tell me what you would like to discuss. I thought we would kick off in February with getting the best out of Conference, so if you are thinking about coming to York, or have booked but haven't attended before, do sign up for the webinar. Watch this space for the date and time! Excellent, especially bearing this in mind.
With four years between me and the events that resulted in the end of my ten year career at Canterbury College, it feels like a good time to reflect upon the mistakes I made during my final few months. I'll be referring to documents I still retain copies of where possible (I'm a hoarder). The period in question is the time between the events of January 12th 2012 and being made redundant on July 6th 2012. For background you can read - On January 18th 2012, six days after the incident (I'll refer to it as that from now ...
Last Thursday, after an energetic campaign, 18 year old Liberal Democrat candidate Lauren Pemberton-Nelson achieved an 8.2% rise in our vote share, more than doubling it to 14.5%. One theme that came across from the campaign was how brilliant a candidate she was. Tom Brake had this to say about her when he went to help: Really impressed with Lauren Pemberton-Nelson #LibDems candidate in Faraday ward. She would shake-up Labour on Southwark Council. — Tom Brake MP (@thomasbrake) January 14, 2016 We've been sent one special photo by regular LDV contributor Ruth Bright who represented the Faraday ward on Southwark ...
[IMG: 7 best] Many thanks to the 12,500 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Farron's strategy to tackle Corbyn is all wrong (71 comments) by George Potter A long, slow goodbye...a warm hello (30 comments) by Tod Sullivan What do you do when you see a disastrous exit poll? Eat your hat, of course. (82 comments) by Caron Lindsay Margaret Beckett reports on reasons for Labour's defeat (49 comments) by Joe Otten Book Review: This Boy, by Alan Johnson (5 comments) by Paul Walter Nice work if you can get it, Nick ...
Possibly the last Twelfth Doctor / Clara novel, or at least the last we'll have for a while, this has the TARDIS arriving in a medieval-style society where knights have lasers. It's good fun, particularly the invocation of the Holy Grail quest, an interesting viewpoint character among the knights, and Clara's lines in general; there's perhaps not enough Doctor in it (though he too is well caught), and I wasn't quite sure in the end how the Glamour here fitted in with its other appearances. But a worthy addition to the shelves.
I'm going to be nominating in the Hugos this year — last year I tried but couldn't get the website to work, but this year I will be nominating no matter what, even if I have to do so by ... Continue reading →
Embed from Getty Images Tim Farron has been writing in the Westmorland Gazette about what needs to be done in the short and long term to repair the damage from December's floods and take action to prevent them in the future. He talks about the need to repair vital infrastructure quickly: In the short-term, there is an urgent need to restore damaged infrastructure, while in the longer term we must look at comprehensive, whole-systems approaches to flood prevention. For far too long, the government has sought to make short-term savings at the expense of long-term investment which would have helped ...
For several years now, I have been celebrating Burns Night with Lewisham Liberal Democrats at the home of two hospitable members in Honor Oak Park. To the best of my knowledge I do not have any Scottish links, nor is any of the participants at these jolly occasions usually a Scot, but that does not [...]
With a Parliamentary vote on Trident looming, Jeremy Corbyn has stepped up his campaign to control Labour's policy levers so that he might line up the party's views on key issues with his own. However, it will not be plain sailing, with opposition to his plans emerging outside the Parliamentary party as well as within. The Guardian reports that the Labour NEC is to examine calls to give it a greater say over policymaking, at the expense of the national policy forum, and to give the committee a decisive say over the recruitment of Labour party staff. Bex Bailey, a ...
When the deaths of Dale Griffin from Mott the Hoople and Glenn Frey from the Eagles followed that of David Bowie, people tweeted things like "I wonder if God is starting a band in Heaven, he's collecting awesome talent from us." The truth is more mundane. Rock's Golden Age in the 1960s and 1970s was a long time ago and figures from that era have been dying off pretty regularly for a good while now. My own favourites, the Spencer Davis Group, appear to be the only important British group of the Sixties where all the original members are still ...
[IMG: Reading a phone. Public domain photo CC0] Like to get a summary of new posts on this blog conveniently by email rather than having to check the RSS feed, stalk me on social media or manually come back to this site? Or fancy getting my monthly Liberal Democrat Newswire? Or even want both? Then sign up below. If you sign up for the daily email with my blog posts, you'll find they come with the added bonus of council by-election results from ALDC and an 'on this day' courtesy of the Liberal Democrat History Group. Email* Name First Last ...
Embed from Getty Images There are some excellent jobs going in the Liberal Democrats at the moment. The most prestigious is the Head of Press. The party is seeking someone to: lead a small but effective media team to promote the Liberal Democrats and the party Leader Tim Farron in regional and national media. You will be expected to lead the party's mission to secure daily coverage in national and regional print, broadcast and online news media. As a key player in the wider Liberal Democrat team, the Head of Press will take a significant role in the rebuilding and ...
Sun 24th
11:30
Farron says there's "not a lot of truth" in Independent report on secret talks with Corbyn over elec...
Today's Independent has a report that there are secret talks going on between Labour and the Liberal Democrats over a joint platform for electoral reform at the next General Election. It attributes the following to a "Lib Dem source": The Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the Greens could also be involved in the talks, the source said. If the negotiations are successful, up to five left-of-centre parties could stand on an agreed platform of voting reform at the 2020 election - giving them a mandate to scrap Westminster's first-past- the-post system without a referendum, so long as they are ...
Embed from Getty Images That's what Guido Fawkes reveals in the Sun today: You have to feel for the Lib Dems. Wiped out at the ballot box in May and now they are being evicted. Aides are preparing to leave their HQ at Great George Street after Westminster, one of England's most Tory councils, gave the go-ahead for plans to turn it into flats. It's the Tories telling the Lib Dems to pack their bags all over again.It won't be the council who have given us notice, of course, but the owners of the block. You can read about their ...
[IMG: Terraced housing] It's never easy doing politics in the Local Government Association. Some commentators carelessly say that it is 'Conservative-controlled' because the Chairman, elected under carefully balanced internal horse-trading rules, is at the moment a Conservative. But in reality it is a perpetual coalition, with each of the four political groups having a veto on the association's public stance. This applies to any issue and to any press release. So it is good to see that the LGA has now published a statement on the Housing and Planning Bill, even if the wording is convoluted and muted. The following ...
In the unlikely event that we will leave the European Union, for many Scots it will mean another chance at independence. I for one would be more inclined to vote to leave the British Union if we were to leave the EU.The EU plays a key part in the day to day events of the [...]
Quite a number of years ago, I suppose it must have been around the turn of the last Century, Maghull Town Council (then Lib Dem run) held a number of meetings with the Environment Agency about flooding. This was when the Lib Dems were warning about 'climate change' at a time when the Environment Agency line was that once in a hundred years events should be treated as such. Of course this was well before the terrible flooding of Maghull's Fouracres in 2012 and the events of Boxing day 2015 but it was clear back then that Maghull would be ...
Sun 24th
09:45What does it mean to be a Liberal Democrat today? Choose the Agenda 2020 Essay competition winner
Embed from Getty Images As part of the Agenda 2020 project to restate our values in a way that's relevant to the modern world, the party ran an essay competition in the Autumn. Members were asked to submit 1000 words on the subject "What does it mean to be a Liberal Democrat today?" Out of what is described as a "huge" number of entries, the party has shortlisted nine. You can read them and vote for your favourite here. We don't know who the shortlisted applicants are – we just have their words to choose from. So, if you're on ...
Following the tale of the washed lottery ticket allegedly worth £30million, I thought I would revisit my own trauma of launders documents from 2011. Paperwork has never been my forte. So it proved on that particular Thursday. At the start of the hitch the company flew me out by El Al; not and experience I particularly want to repeat. The airline itself is no better than average; it was the questioning that I can live without. The kind of questions that one gets with no other airline departing Heathrow. When leaving Israel I put up with the questioning with good ...
Sun 24th
09:25
What line will the various members of the right of centre press take on the EU referendum?
This seems like a simple question to answer for some of you: they don't like the European Union, never have, so of course the right of centre press is going to stick to its guns and try and chide the British public into voting to leave the EU in what may be its only chance to democratically do so. Well, except there is one big problem in all of this: David Cameron. In order to continue to peddle a Eurosceptic line throughout the referendum short campaign, the right-wing press will have to campaign directly against a Tory Prime Minister. And ...
Sun 24th
08:54LibLink: Nick Clegg: Give doctors the right to prescribe Cannabis for those in real pain
Embed from Getty Images Nick Clegg's Standard column this week tackled the issue of Cannabis prescription: He tells some real-life stories of people whose lives have been transformed by being able to use Cannabis: Faye, a corporate PA for a big company who was diagnosed four years ago with rheumatoid arthritis, is about as far away from the cliché of the layabout pothead as you can possibly imagine. An ambitious, outgoing and highly able young woman, the pain threatened to derail the career she had been building since the age of 16. She tried a number of prescription medicines but ...
Sun 24th
08:30
Shropshire is well behind in broadband rollout - we can't continue to be a #broadbad county
We can no longer use the excuse that it is difficult to install broadband across Shropshire because we are a rural county. Most rural areas are doing much better than we are. It is the failure of Shropshire Council to invest in broadband that lies at the heart of the problem. A few weeks back,... Continue reading Shropshire is well behind in broadband rollout - we can't continue to be a #broadbad county →
Residents in the Tullideph area recently raised with me the poor lighting on the pathway from Logie Street to the Tullideph Street/Place junction. This is a very well-used path as it provides the main route on foot from Tullideph to catching a bus on Logie Street. Many of the path users are elderly, living in the Tullideph Sheltered Housing. I contacted the council's Street Lighting Partnership Manager about the lighting situation and she sent me a very helpful response as follows : "I have had a look at the path in question and can understand the concerns that have been ...
[IMG: York Minster] Previously I talked about the excellent Anders Hanson and his English Party reports. Now it's the turn of Geoff Payne and his excellent federal party reports, from which the following information is taken about the agenda for Liberal Democrat conference in York (for which there is a Facebook event here). We will be debating motions on: Fracking Economic Policy A fairer deal for private renters Regulatory framework for cannabis [See Nick Clegg's recent article for more on this issue] Privacy and security in a digital age Electing diverse Members of Parliament [See All-women shortlists to be debated ...
[IMG: Top Secret booklet. CC0 Public Domain] Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, is in secret talks with Jeremy Corbyn about voting reform... However, for the talks to progress, the Lib Dems want a respected senior figure in the Labour Party to take on a formal role as a go-between. "It should be a former Cabinet minister, or someone of that rank," said a Lib Dem source. The Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the Greens could also be involved in the talks, the source said. If the negotiations are successful, up to five left-of-centre parties could stand on an ...
File 770 Destroys Poetry Pastiche by pixel. (tags: sf poetry ) Texas Gun Lovers Start to Think Open Carry not such a Great Idea Ohdearwhatapity. (tags: guns uspolitics ) Affiches d'un autre Âge Posters for and against Swiss women getting the vote. (tags: switzerland sexandgenderandsexuality elections )
I am delighted to have gained the commitment of the Minister for Transport that the £10 million secured by the Welsh Lib Dems which cannot be invested in rail schemes in North Wales during this financial year will be protected. The Minister has also pledged to conduct a thorough review to address what she called 'unacceptable' delays to rail work in the region. I have been highlighting these issues with the Minister for some time and the speed of progress has been disappointing to say the least. The Minister has now agreed with me that the delay in carrying out ...
