We're talking Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in the first ever Yellow Guard Outside In podcast, where I cast an eye from New York over the landscape of American politics and current affairs even further afield.

Posted by Chris Connolly on A Yellow Guard

There will be a lot of Ludlow people in Craven Arms on 5 April. We'll be at the Gateway for the appeal hearing into Shropshire Council's refusal of an application for a 5MW solar farm at Henley Hall on Squirrel Lane. The four of us unitary councillors for Ludlow and Clee will be there, along... Continue reading We councillors take different line to Shropshire Council in objection to Henley Hall solar farm appeal →

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

The famous Lawnmower Museum which gets post addressed to Stockport A rare thing happened last week, the town spoke with one voice. The packed town hall meeting agreed that in developing the town there were a number of key challenges: Rail links to the North and EastMaintaining the line to Manchester Piccadilly and AirportImproving roads to the North and EastPromoting the town's name and a commensurate dropping of the failed and hated 'Seftonisation' approachmake the most of the legacy : Lord St., The Pier, Botanic Gardens etcthe town is a place people want to live and commute from as with ...

Posted on birkdale focus

Those pesky Lib Dems. Why won't they curl up and die? They're up against a distorted voting system, a hostile press, and all our money. We've stolen their messages, their campaigning techniques, their votes and now most of their seats. Whenever they've threatened to break through, we've knocked them back. Thatcher beat their predecessors by [...]

Posted by Admin on whyjointhelibdems

[IMG: Ted Cruz controversial Iowa GOTV Voting Violation letter] As in the UK, the list of who has voted in an election is a public list in the US too. That makes it possible for political campaigns to do variations on 'we / your neighbours will know whether or not you go to vote'. Done badly, this sort of social pressure can easily backfire. But done increasingly frequently it is, because experimentation into different Get Out The Vote (GOTV) methods shows this sort of messaging is amongst the most powerful there is. Ted Cruz's attempts in the US for the ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Abel's Harp - once the Drum &; Monkey I have blogged before about the stories that it used to be possible to wander into pubs in the Shropshire hills and find the likes of Eric Clapton and Ronnie Lane giving unadvertised concerts. The journalist Johnty O'Donnell, with whom I have recently swapped emails on the subject, has pinned down the truth of these stories. As, of course, the Shropshire Star tells it: God, Slowhand . . . all nicknames for the guitar legend Eric Clapton. And indeed he did appear, playing along with Ronnie Lane, previously of The Faces, to ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Reading Road will be closed between the crossroads and the M4 motorway bridge by Woodward Close from 8 pm – 6 am every night from the evening of Wednesday 3rd February to the morning of Friday 19th February. This is so that the road can be resurfaced for the new cycleway. The diversion will be via King Street Lane, Bearwood Road, Barkham Road and back on to Reading Road via the Station Link Road. Sainsburys will open as usual. There will be some nights where residents and businesses between the crossroads and Woodward Close will not be able to access ...

Posted by Prue Bray on Prue Bray

Some graves yesterday What is it with West Midland graveyards and the authorities? On Saturday I blogged about the thwarting of the locals' attempts to preserve a historic gravestone at Bishop's Castle. Now comes news that Birmingham City Council is frustrating the Jewellery Quarter Research Trust's effort to compile an online database of thepeople buried in the city's Warstone Lane and Key Hill Cemeteries. ITV News reports: The voluntary group's website, is still under development, and contains database with lists of graves and in some cases biographies, obituaries and photographs or portraits of the deceased ...They say they receives hundreds ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

In the Conservative government's July 2015 budget it was announced that students beginning university in the academic year 2016/17 will no longer be eligible to receive maintenance grants, a non-repayable cash sum given to students whose household income is lower than £25k p.a. Maintenance grants will also be made unavailable to students belonging to households with incomes of £42,620 or [...]

Posted by liberaliskra on The Libertine

The next Cheadle Area Committee is at 6pm at Ladybridge Park Residents Club, Edenbridge Road, Cheadle Hulme on Tuesday 9th February 2016. As ever, all are welcome. We've got a busy agenda for next week. It's OK Club is asking for £1,000 for a football table, computer games, Wii, exercise classes, art and massage. The club is based at St Cuthbert's Church, Cheadle and helps people with mental health problems. It's been running since 2008. Planning application 59845 – two storey extension, 157 Stanley Road, Heald Green Planning application 60421 – conversion of 17 Church Road (corner of Church Road ...

Posted by Iain Roberts on Keith, Graham and Iain
YouGov

As I mentioned in yesterday's post on the botched attempt to oust Nick Clegg in 2014, the new Liberator is out. Which means, whether we like it or not, it is time to spend some more time at Bonkers Hall. A shadow cabinet maker My cabinetmaker calls this morning to effect some repairs to one of my Sheraton sideboards. They are occasioned by too vigorous a celebration of the anniversary of Graham Tope's victory at Sutton and Cheam - really, once the members of the Liberal Democrat Women's executive committee get a few pints of Smithson & Greaves Northern Bitter ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

So these are the top ten books every child should read by the time they leave school. the list is a result of asking 500 English teacher and overall its the sort of list that almost turned me off reading for life.I never, ever, want to see of mice and men ever....ever...again! Simon Cooke has a good take down of the list and says this. "Is it any surprise that people are turned off reading for pleasure if the dreary existence of Lennie Small is rammed down their throats at school. I can't think of a less relevant book to ...

Posted by Carl Minns on Carl Minns - Thoughts from Hull

The statisticians appointed by the British Polling Council have spoken. The cause of the 2015 opinion poll disaster was - wait for it - statistical sampling error. Pollsters chose the wrong mix of people. Never mind that they had previously blamed bad statistics for their 1992 disaster, and thought they had then sorted out how to do the maths. Meanwhile, professionals and pundits agreed that asking which party had the best leader was, consistently, a more reliable guide to who would win. Thus, if they'd just relied on the finding that Cameron led Miliband in 2015, they'd have called it ...

Posted by David Allen on Liberal Democrat Voice

[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 ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Following on from Paul Tilsley's retirement as leader of the Liberal Democrats in Birmingham is the news that Jon Hunt has been elected the new leader: [His] focus will be on rebuilding grass roots support. Coun Hunt said: "This is what I intend the Liberal Democrats will be known for as we rebuild from our own dark days in the first half of this decade. "I believe we desperately need good Liberal Democrat councillors in Birmingham to ensure the voices of ordinary people are heard and to promote sensible and realistic policies." Coun Hunt joined the Birmingham Post in 1988 ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

I will be in London next Monday (8 February) for work meetings, and wondered if anyone might be up for dinner that evening? Unfortunately my favourite Georgian restaurant is closed on Mondays, but I'm open to other suggestions. I'm staying on Lincoln's Inn Fields and would prefer to eat somewhere moderately convenient to there, without too much background noise given my middle-aged ears. Also I'm going to take a couple of hours off on Tuesday morning, 9 February, and go see the Lost Library of Dr John Dee in the Royal College of Physicians (off Albany St, near Great Portland ...

LinkedIn and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority have together been working on a project to look at economic development in the city. One of the things to come out of the evidence – based on 614,000 LinkedIn members in Greater Manchester – is the skills that have got people jobs in the last 12 months. So if you're looking for a job, or thinking about a change, take a look. Click on the graphics to see them in more detail. [IMG: Top 30 skills that got people jobs in the last 12 months] Top 30 skills that got people jobs ...

Posted by Iain Roberts on Keith, Graham and Iain

The quite ridiculous recent debate about renewing the Trident nuclear missile deterrent made me think about how out of touch our politicians and media really are. We have for years lived in a society where government and the press have told us what is good for us, what we should be concerned about and who are enemies are. Both also know how to get us to vote with fear in our hearts. My guess is that public thinking is actually far more advanced than right wing journalists and the majority of our politicians may think. Firstly, Trident is the product ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

[IMG: LGBT history month] LGBT History Month is a wonderful opportunity for us all to celebrate LGBT's contribution to society and promote a more equal and diverse society which benefits us all. The Liberal Democrats have been steadfast in campaigning for LGBT equality and inclusion working with a variety of organisations to make sure that a multiplicity of voices are heard and considered in Westmister and beyond. The last Parliament marked a historic step in challenging the status quo. The Equal Marriage Act driven by the Liberal Democrats in Government was celebrated up and down the country but it is ...

Posted by Tim Farron MP on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: iEC 5200mAh Portable Power Bank] Although usually described in product listings as being "for MP3/Wireless Speaker/Bluetooth Headphones", the iEC 5200mAh portable power bank actually works as a charger for any device with a micro-USB connector, such as a smartphone. You can also use it with other devices, such as Apple hardware with Lightning connectors, although for those you will have to provide your own cable. It comes in simple cardboard packaging, vastly easier to open that the plastic-wrapped monstrosities made by people who think inaccessibility is a virtue and of course rather kinder on the environment too. The little ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
eUKhost

We want your views on this one. A local resident has suggested that we look at getting the railings alongside the path from Hawthorn Road to Foxland Road removed. [IMG: Selection_276] The path – which runs roughly parallel to Burnside Road – is well-used, not least by school children with Gatley Primary at one end and The Kingsway School down the road at the other. There are three suggestions: From Beech Avenue to Hawthorn Road remove all the railings alongside the path. This would open the path up, allow people to move more easily between the path and field, reduce ...

Posted by Iain Roberts on Keith, Graham and Iain

Today's Telegraph contains the most scathing attack yet by a former Labour Minister on the new opposition leader, in which he suggests that Jeremy Corbyn is more interested in furthering the interests of minority causes than in uniting the Labour Party behind him. Tom Harris writes that every time the Jeremy Corbyn talks about the Falklands, or Trident, or trade union legislation, or places inverted commas around the word "terrorism", he nails another dozen nails into the coffin lid of his party. However, he genuinely believes what he says: We're often told (implausibly, in my opinion) that today's young people ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

This is my discharge notice from King's College Hospital on January 29: Lord Avebury was admitted as an emergency on 19th January 2016. Following outpatient blood tests which showed an acutely raised creatinine of 250, he was admitted for IV fluids which resulted in the sum improvement in his renal function. He was due to have an outpatient renal artery angiogram +/- stent on 21st January to treat the underlying cause of the acute kidney injury, so this was performed as an inpatient. Due to his low platelet count, (due to the underlying diagnosis of myeloproliferative disorder) and deranged clotting ...

Posted by Eric Avebury on Eric Avebury

A couple of weeks ago when at Southport Lib Dems Burns Night I fell into conversation with Geoff Simm and his wife who happened to be sharing the same table with Peter & Linda Hough, Jen and I. As so often happens conversation gets around to where we came from and Geoff told me he was from Newton-le-Willows where I often used to travel to many years back to pick up printed material. This prompted Geoff to tell me about Newton's printing heritage and in particular the business founded by George McCorquodale. I learned that this printing company had been ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Embed from Getty Images During the week the Guardian published a very rounded post about Caroline Pidgeon and her bid to be Mayor of London. It starts: I ask her a gloomy question. She gives an upbeat reply. "Morale is actually very, very good in the party," said Caroline Pidgeon, who has the possibly onerous honour of being Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor. "We've got tons of new members in London who are excited and energetic, and that's fantastic." Her party says there are now 10,000 of them in the capital, the highest number for decades. Plus, council by-election ...

Posted by Mary Reid on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: Dorothy Thornhill websize] If you want to work at the heart of local government in the Lib Dems, then a vacancy has come up to advise one of our two directly-elected mayors. With a great reputation as someone who has helped to transform Watford in her time in charge, this role will see you using your experience to [...]

Posted by Anders Hanson on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Embed from Getty Images Keynes and his contemporaries did not share our present day casual attitude to the imbalances we see in international trade. The monthly, or quarterly, trade figures were a regular and prominent feature of our business news, at one time, but we have to look much harder to find those same figures now. Keynes's proposal that international trade be separated from domestic trade by the use of a separate international currency, the Bancor, formed part of the official British proposals at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference which set the international financial and monetary arrangements for the post ...

Posted by Peter Martin on Liberal Democrat Voice

The United States, despite its almost religious reverence for their constitution, is prone to periodic political crises which can be almost existential in scope. The civil war was caused by the constitutional ambiguity concerning slavery, which poisonous legacy still defaces American society today. In the twenty-first century the idea that there could be any legal justification for slavery seems self-evidently absurd. When Al Gore polled half a million votes more than George W, Bush in the 2000 Presidential election, even democracy itself took second place to the Constitution since it was Mr. Bush who was elected, by virtue of carrying ...

Posted by Cicero on Cicero's Songs

Embed from Getty Images Community is - rightly - considered a fundamental part of our values as liberals. Beyond its inclusion in our basic creeds, however, it is perhaps one of the less discussed and debated parts of Liberal Democrat belief. Whilst much ink is continually spilt over our positions on equality and liberty, what "community" means is perhaps too often taken as a given. I want to suggest that we need to think about this more, because community has to stand at the core of a liberal society - and not just in the sense of localism that "community" ...

Posted by James Baillie on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: liberator-2] And as I complain about a lack of inspiration, the latest edition of Liberator comes out and gives me some. Specifically, Seth Thevoz's article on the 2014 attempted coup to remove Nick Clegg as leader of the Liberal Democrats. I'm usually in agreement with much of what Seth writes, and I do agree with most of what he writes in the article. However, I do think he's wrong in attributing all the blame for it not succeeding to MPs not stepping up to the plate and calling for Clegg to go. That was definitely an important factor, but ...

Posted by Nick on What You Can Get Away With
Mon 1st
12:13

Tatton update

It's now five months since the planning application to develop Gatley's Tatton site was submitted by the owners, Dickens, and accepted by the Council. [IMG: tatton front] The application is for a large convenience store on the ground floor and flats above and behind. Five months is an unusually long time to wait, and we're told that the delay is mostly down to the owners needing to supply extra information – for example on highways issues. We hope that the planning application proceeds and we see suitable development on the site sooner rather than later: we've all waited far too ...

Posted by Iain Roberts on Keith, Graham and Iain
Mon 1st
11:26

A visit to Calais

[IMG: Jane Dodds Calais] Last week I left Welshpool with my car rather more heavily loaded than usual- with sleeping bags and tarpaulins, all donated by caring Montgomeryshire people wanting to help refugees living in the cold of a Calais winter. I've reported in full on my visit to the Calais refugee camp last week in several posts and videos on my facebook site. Please click the link to have a look. The sleeping bags were very warmly received by the volunteers in Calais. They are the most practical help for people living out under tents and tarpaulins in their ...

Posted by Jane Dodds on Liberal Democrat Voice

The leader of Richmond Council, a Conservative these days, has warned that London is set to become a mega-city on the scale of Rio or Karachi or Shanghai - with 13 million people by 2050. I will be 92 in 2050 and unlikely to be popping up to London for the night life (though who knows). The question posed was whether there should be limits on London's population growth to avoid this eventuality. These are uncharted and uneasy waters to commentate in, let alone swim in. Is there hidden racism in his message? How should progressivcs react? It isn't at ...

Posted by David Boyle on The Real Blog

If you want to catch up with what we're saying click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAwGTx-MDWQ

Posted by chriswhite on Chris White

Note from the County Council NOTICE is given that the Hertfordshire County Council intend to make an Order under Section 14[1] of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, to prohibit all traffic from using that length of Sandpit Lane, St Albans from its junction with B651 Sandridge Road north eastwards to its junction with Marshalswick [...]

Posted by chriswhite on Chris White

[IMG: Iowa caucuses C-Span bus] Sunday 31 January After a rather dramatic and delayed journey to the US, I'm finally in Iowa. Most folk on my flight from Chicago are either news reporters covering the caucuses or members of the US Congress stumping for one of the candidates. The buzzword is 'turnout'. There's hope the numbers turning up to tomorrow night could break all records. Folk seem most excited about the weather....or the lack of it. At this time of year, Iowans are normally wading through feet of snow. Not this year. It's cold but not painfully so and there ...

Posted by Kevin Lang on Liberal Democrat Voice

At some point relatively soon, we will probably know the date the referendum that will determine whether or not the United Kingdom remains a member of the European Union. It will probably be June – it will probably be June 23rd. If that's the case, will we see some sort of "EU debate" on TV, somewhat like the leaders debates in 2010 (as opposed to the horror show weirdness of the 2015 attempt to adjust to the supposed end of the age of two-party politics)? If so, on current form, the two most likely opponents would be David Cameron for ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

There is a clear lesson from history for Labour MPs unhappy with Jeremy Corbyn and who might therefore be tempted to form a new party: [IMG: Labour defectors to the SDP pie chart]

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

This issue's free sample online content is the Commentary on how the party got both the vote on Syria wrong and the process leading up to it. Also as a free sample, Seth Thevoz describes how, as he saw it, the attempted ousting of Nick Clegg after the disastrous results of May 2014 nearly succeeded – and why it didn't. Elsewhere the issue has news and gossip in Radical Bulletin, book reviews, Lord Bonkers' latest thoughts and among the articles: More Cats Needed: Sarah Green offers an answer to the Liberal Democrats' essay competition Not In My Name: By backing ...

Posted by The Liberator Collective on Liberal Democrat Voice

 

So, I've been walking around a bit, and making sure that I'm properly hydrated (who knew that I was supposed to drink nearly two litres of water a day?). A month has gone by, well, a month and four days, to be strictly accurate, but has it made a difference? The answer is, slightly surprisingly, yes. Including the four days in December, which I tend to see as a warm-up, I've made my ten thousand steps and 1.9 litres of water every day, managing more than three hundred and seventy thousand steps (just over 12,000 a day!) in January alone, ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy

Frank Finlay: British Oscar-nominated actor who played opposite Olivier dies aged 89 When it comes to transgender rights, there's nothing feminist about being a bigot - *applause & whistling* Astonishingly good article; terrifying comment thread The Evil Dead Cabin | Atlas Obscura [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

Posted on Ginuary

Economics in the Age of Abundance Now that we can all eat, what's next? (tags: economics ) The Abdication of Moral Responsibility What happened to human rights? (tags: middleeast syria egypt ) Seizing valuables from asylum seekers - Denmark has lost the plot, and its heart (tags: eu migration denmark ) People who are late No simple answer. (tags: lifehacking ) A Very Nearly Successful Coup (PDF) How Clegg wasn't forced out in May 2014. (tags: libdems ) Boneheaded aphorisms from Davos's windy summit Terrific takedown by @LucyKellaway. (tags: economics politics funny )