Longer term Liberal Democrat bloggers will remember the evocatively named 'Moonlight over Essex', the blog of Cllr Chris Black, from Rayleigh, a not particularly notable area of Liberal Democrat support. And, having passed through Rayleigh earlier today, I was reminded of his blog (Chris, if you're reading this, hope that all is well with you and your colleagues!). Hence, the title... This evening's meeting of International Relations Committee was an unusual one, possibly because we spent quite a lot of time on discussions of an organisational and functional nature. As part of the Party's Governance Review, Sal Brinton, in her ...
My exploration of the more pleasant shopping streets of south Leicester on Saturday took in an established off licence as well as a new pub. The Offie in Clarendon Park Road stocks 500 beers from around the world, as well as ciders wines and spirits. And, as you can see, it sits next door to a secondhand bookshop. There used to be one of those among the Stoneygate shops too, but it closed some years ago.
Of all the tales told on these islands, few are as strange as that of William Palmer. Cursed, apparently, on the road to Canterbury in the spring of 1185 for denying the presence of the other world by the king of the grey folk - or Fairy - himself, and compelled to walk from that day to this between the worlds of magic and of men, and subsequently known in all the strange and wonderful lore attributed to the mysterious William Palmer, as Pilgrim. My sleeping pattern has been all wrong this week. I have gone to bed early, fallen ...
If you see work going on next week to cut down 3-4 trees on the boundary between The Paddocks car park and Elms Field, please do not panic! It isn't work starting on the development of Elms Field! So what IS happening? You may know that Network Rail and Southwest Trains have decided to turn the car park at Wokingham station into a multi-storey. Work is going to begin at the end of March. Lots of commuters will have nowhere to park for about 4 months. A little bit after the end of March, the council will be closing the ...
From the Northampton Chronicle & Echo today: Rail campaigners fighting for a link between Northampton and Bedford have launched an online petition. The English Regional Transport Association wants to ensure that the land and track that would be used for the link are protected and is calling for the route to be re-opened. The group says the route would link Northampton and Cambridge, which it says has been identified as a priority in local growth plans.This sounds a good idea but, given the amount of redevelopment currently taking place in the relevant part of Northampton, I fear the campaign may ...
The English Boundary review was launched today. These are the boundaries for the next General Election. We will know what they are in 2018. What is interesting is looking at the division of English seats as proposed in 2013 to now. Region 2010 Seats 2013 Proposal 2016 Eastern 58 56 58 East Midlands 46 44 44 London
I put a question at council today to find out how many questions had been put down by members of the public for today's meeting, and how many had been refused. The answer is 130. One, about Durham bus station, was allowed. 129 about the pay cuts for teaching assistants were refused. What was that quote from our council leader in a recent press release. Oh yes. "In County Durham we have a strong track record of engaging with our residents on major decisions".
Council tax payers in Durham will be paying 3.99% more council tax next year (2016-17), and many of them will probably believe the council's story that it's all about government cuts to funding. They'll be wrong. It is true that Durham County council is being forced to make savings because of cuts in government funding. I accept the council's statement that by 31 March 2016 the council will have delivered savings of £153 million since 201. But at the same time I know that they have put an extra £133 million pounds into reserves over exactly the same period. I ...
The new Scottish Party Political Broadcast is going out right now. It's focused on the idea of putting a penny on tax for education and features parents from across Scotland talking about their experience of parenting, the challenges they face and their hopes for their children's futures. Enjoy! One of the participants is Wendy Chamberlain, who joined the party in the wake of the election and introduced Willie Rennie at Autumn Conference. Willie Rennie said: Fit for the future is more than a sound bite. It is the fundamental challenge that we face as a country. At the moment, someone's ...
The Pinkham Way Alliance needs our help! That's right - over five years since their campaign began, yet another consultation on Pinkham Way has started.
Followers of best practice for measuring and evaluating the impact of PR will not have been surprised to see the wave of criticism recently directed at Meltwater for publishing a white paper extolling the virtues of 'advertising value equivalence' (AVEs) to measure the value of media coverage secured by PR. Not surprised because AVEs have - thankfully – long since fallen from their perch and instead are now widely viewed as discredited, with - for example - industry award entries ruling out using AVEs. However, what's missing from much of the criticism is a detailed critique of the case in ...
I'm proud to be English. It's the country that I was born in, that educated me and that I've always been proud to be able to contribute to through my work, taxes and voluntary efforts. It's home. I'm proud to be British. For me and many others, Britishness is about being welcoming and inclusive to everyone who calls our islands ... The post Why remaining in the EU is the proud, patriotic choice appeared first on ten pence piece.
March is a surprisingly quiet month at Blyth Town Council. Scheduled meetings are:- Thursday 3rd March , Finance Committee Tuesday 8th March , Planning & Development Committee Thursday 17th March , Full Town Council Meeting ( preceded by Public Question Time ) Tuesday 29th March , Events Committee All meetings are scheduled to start at 6:30 pm, at Arms Evertyne House
Embed from Getty Images You really couldn't make it up. A senior Tory Cabinet member has bemoaned a local Council for making cuts to its Youth Service. Iain Duncan Smith, yes the Work and Pensions Secretary, who according to reports believes people with debilitating and life-limiting illnesses can still work, has told a local newspaper that the "vitally important" provision must be saved. Read the story here. I think the nail has finally been hammered in to irony's coffin and it is being lowered into the ground. Do these Tories really have no understanding or self-awareness that it is the ...
[IMG: Talk Time Tuesday] Whether it is raining hard making it impossible to canvass on the doorstep or if you just have 5 minutes to spare before your next meeting, phone canvassing can be an ideal way of not losing any valuable campaign time. Winning campaigns need a very high level of early voter contact and Connect VPBs should [...]
Let's not get nostalgic about Jeb Bush He lost because he was bad, not because he was decent. (tags: uspolitics ) What did the EU ever do for Britain? Good question; many good answers. (tags: eu ukpolitics ) Richard Corbett's Mythbusters Veteran Labour MEP sets out the facts. (tags: eu ukpolitics ) Seas are now rising faster than they have in 2,800 years, scientists say *gulp* (tags: climatechange ) Why Professor Indiana Jones Was Hated By His Colleagues Hee! (tags: sf funny ) Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain Big Bird defeats a demon and defies Osiris. ...
The "comment" by Anonymous to the previous post deserves more than a comment in reply. Anonymous, and I suspect most people in the UK, see the Falklands War as a source of national pride - putting the "Great" back into Great Britain (which is actually a geographical term, nothing to do with political eminence). But there's another side of the story . Britian's title to the Falklands, which was claimed as a Crown Colony in 1841, was always a bit dubious, and disputed by Argentina from the beginning. For some years before 1982, when the war took place, the Britain's ...
We are well used to Amnesty International producing reports on dodgy and restrictive regimes around the World, but it is less common that they turn their attention to the United Kingdom. The UK Government therefore should sit up and take notice. The Independent tells us that Amnesty believes that the UK is setting a "dangerous precedent" to the rest of the world by undermining the human rights of its own citizens at the same time as continuing to supply arms to questionable regimes such as Saudi Arabia. They says that the Government's commitment to repealing the Human Rights Act, its ...
Tim Talks – The European Referendum In the latest Tim Talks, Tim Farron focusses on Britain's place in Europe following his meeting in Brussels with other liberal leaders and Prime Ministers from across Europe. Join the fight to keep us #INtogether now: www.libdems.org.uk/europe Posted by Liberal Democrats on Monday, 22 February 2016
Armed with a Valyrian steel sword named Deal-Maker, Donald Trump embarks on a quest through Westeros to take care of its border policies.
Wed 24th
12:45
Lancashire Enterprise Partnership – The Lancashire Strategic Transport Prospectus – Post...
This is my 3rd and last posting about this recently published Lancashire Transport Prospectus. My previous 2 postings are available via the link below:- Well this prospectus is a real curates egg of muddle to me and shows how both good and bad transport planning have come together in one document. The issue/problem seems to be associated with naturally adjoining communities that need connectivity with each other being in differing local authority areas. An example of some good joined up planning is the proposal to bring rails and a station back into Skelmersdale. Sadly necessary because in the 1960's ...
[IMG: Lorna and the winning Sutton by-election team.] We had an excellent result in the Sutton Division of Cambridgeshire last week when Lorna Dupre gained a seat from the Conservatives on a massive 18.5% swing. Here, veteran campaigner and local team member, Mark Inskip, sets out the background and the campaign. At the end I'll say a bit about some of the literature [...]
Wednesday: T'was ten years ago, I first opened my VERY FLUFFY DIARY and shared my GENIUS with the World. How many things have changed in that time! There have been three* James Bond films; four** Doctor Whos; and for five years the Liberals ran the country. A bit. And I used to think that IMPORTANT things needed to be EMPAHASISED and so I used a lot of ALL-CAPS! Nowadays I realise that in the Internets this is considered VERY FUNNY and should be ENCOURAGED! So if you think YOU feel old remember... next year THE FLUFFY ELEPHANT GETS THE VOTE! ...
[IMG: Terraced housing] Our friends at LGA Lib Dems have circulated a letter to private sector tenants from the Cheltenham Lib Dem team. ALDC members can download the letter from our file library here: For further campaign materials for private rented sector tenants, ALDC members also have access to our Housing Campaigns Pack. The pack features letters, petitions, [...]
Embed from Getty Images Junior doctors are to hold three more one-day strikes. The British Medical Association, which represents the doctors, has also announced that it is seeking a judicial review into the imposition of the new contract because the government failed to carry out an equalities impact study. Norman Lamb has added his voice to the debate: Jeremy Hunt was wrong to impose new contracts on Junior Doctors, when there is clearly still huge opposition to its terms. These planned strikes heighten the risk junior doctors will leave the NHS in their droves and work abroad decimating our health ...
Anyone else get an email from something called The Patchwork Foundation thanking them for confirming their attendance at an event in London in a fortnight? Apparently I have confirmed a place on an event chaired by Iain Dale, with Angela ... Continue reading →
[IMG: Explaining Cameron's Comeback - book cover] Permeated with Robert Worcester's typical breezily dismissive style, Explaining Cameron's Comeback (written with three co-authors) is rather different from most of the other 2015 general election books such as the excellent Nuffield volume or Tim Ross's study of the Conservative campaign. That is partly because this volume focuses so much on what voters were telling pollsters rather than about what politicians were getting up to day by day, almost all of which most voters never noticed. As with Deborah Mattinson's excellent Talking to a brick wall about an earlier political period, this is ...
Wed 24th
10:06
Nadine Dorries, Cameron, and who is prime minister - why this helps the Remain side of the debate
Yesterday, Nadine Dorries, Tory MP and erstwhile game show contestant, took to LBC to say some things about the EU referendum debate. I shouldn't have to actually say this but just to confirm, Dorries is a Brexiteer. But she had this to say about David Cameron, which is interesting: "If the British public vote to leave the EU, I would imagine and hope the first thing David Cameron would do is stand down as Prime Minister." This is in sharp contrast to what most of the Tory cabinet members are saying (and what Boris is saying), namely that David Cameron ...
miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 23-02-2016 posted The Blood is the Life for 23-02-2016 on #dreamwidth legionseagle | She Wrote it, But It Was Frightfully Problematic In the midst of a FAB article & comments thread about romance tropes, @legionseagle has this handy questionnaire: The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant: Day 5531: Brexit is for the Faeries In which Richard is spot on. Again. BPS Research Digest: You hear a voice in your head when you're reading, right? I'm one of those who hears character voices not my own Putting out the Twitter trashfire — ...
[IMG: Obama hand] Clark Reynolds, 3 years old, greeted by President Obama, Feb 18 2016 at the White House. (Pete Souza/Washington Post) We have been struggling with the representation issue for years. Our party leaders strongly believe in broadening the look and feel of our MPs. Our members instinctively seek parity between men, women and other backgrounds: a desire to open up opportunity should be in our blood. But we aren't quite sure how to achieve that and so far, as Josh Dixon sets out, our success has not been much to write home about. The Elect Diverse MPs motion ...
[IMG: Cheriton Light Festival 2016 poster] From 6pm to 9pm on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th February Strange Cargo will be bringing you the third Cheriton Light Festival. There is a line up of extraordinary artists, who have made beautiful artworks for you to see and participate in. Festival visitors coming into Folkestone West station by train can view Jyll Bradley's beautiful, luminescent new sculpture Espalier on Strange Cargo's factory building. At the far end of Cheriton High Street, Ross Ashton and Karin Monid's immersive sound and light artwork Spiritus is at All Souls Church. We are delighted to welcome ...
I spoke yesterday on Wave 102 News about the proposed closure of the Dundee Passport Office in Greenmarket that is scheduled for 18th March. When Dundee's former passport office in Nethergate was closed in autumn 2011, the then Identity and Passport Service gave an assurance that local passport interview facilities would still be available in Dundee. The recent announcement of the closure of the Dundee facility is a clear breach of promise. It now means that local people in Dundee and also people across Tayside, Fife and Aberdeenshire will have to travel to Glasgow or Edinburgh for passport interview services ...
Yesterday, I had a number of meetings including : * A site visit with council officers at Blackness Library to look at the best way of improving safety at the entrance steps when it is dark. Officers are considering the options and I will be discussing them with West End Community Council and residents to get views on the best way of achieving the best outcome. * The AGM of of the Bonnie Dundee group, at the City Chambers. Bonnie Dundee encourages improvements to the Dundee environment and helps local groups who keep Dundee's parks, open areas, streets and gardens ...
