It's Thursday night, so this means we're awaiting by-election results with bated breath. Liberal Democrats were hopeful of a gain in the Aylsham ward of Broadlands Council in Norfolk – and they did it! Aylsham (Broadland) result: LDEM: 48.0% (+17.1) CON: 37.9% (+5.5) LAB: 14.1% (-8.0) — Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 17, 2016 A Labour vote well squeezed. Here's the vote numbers: Aylsham (Broadland) vote result: LDEM: 829 CON: 654 LAB: 243 — Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 17, 2016 Well done to Cllr Steve Riley and his team.
We all know that the comedian Al Murray is a direct descendant of the Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. But our Trivial Fact of the Week reveals that he is also the great nephew of the actor Stephen Murray. A young person writes: Who was Stephen Murray? Only the star of the radio comedy The Navy Lark, Sir Francis Walsingham to Glenda Jackson's Elizabeth R on television and star of such post-war films as London Belongs to Me and The Magnet.
Liberal Democrat MSP Jim Hume called on the government today not to 'stand idly by' whilst the mental health of the nation is at stake. Hume was responding to comments made by the Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland, Dr. Miles Mack, who said that the scarcity of funding for general practice [...]
[IMG: Selection_030] Thank you to everyone who came to Robbies Brewery on Wednesday for the latest Vision Stockport event. With over 50 people and businesses large and small represented it was a really positive meeting. Vision Stockport is the Community Interest Company created to investigate the potential for a Business Improvement District (BID) covering the Town Centre. The idea of a BID is that companies pay an additional 1-1.5% of their rateable value over and above their regular business rates. That extra money goes into a pot which is controlled by the businesses themselves, and they can use it to ...
Pressure is mounting on the Conservatives to pull back from the massive cuts they have voted through for some of the most vulnerable disabled people in our communities. In fact, the Chancellor's Red Book reveals that the disabled cuts are by far the biggest money-saving measures planned over the next five years, saving more than £4 billion and allowing Osborne to cut Capital Gains tax and fund tax cuts for the wealthy. Our Conservative MP, Mary Robinson, voted for the cuts for disabled people, as did William Wragg in Hazel Grove. However, we are now hearing that "scores" of Conservative ...
Cliff Michelmore belonged to the generation that pioneered television presentation and still possessed a certain decency and innocence about the medium. His heyday fell just before the point where my memories of television begin, but I do recall people like his Tonight Fyfe Robertson. He gave the impression that he did not realise he was on television or at least that he was constantly surprised to find he was. The 50th anniversary of Aberfan, the disaster in which a coal waste tip slid down the hillside and engulfed a primary school, falls on 21 October this year. In many ways ...
Garth Stahl explains why white, working-class boys shun university. "The word 'Zio' was part of the club's lexicon, despite its connotations eventually becoming widely known." Alex Chalmers on why he resigned as co-chair of Oxford University Labour Club. Andrew Allen says the government should forget the idea of an trans-Pennine road tunnel. Sarah Mills looks at the way the Girl Guides' evolving badge programme reveals wider changes in society over time. "I remember crying all the way through the scene where he did the 'Singin' in the Rain' number. And my sister said, "What are you crying for?" and I ...
To mark this year's budget, I wrote the inside story of Danny Alexander and his yellow budget box for the Times Red Box. They have graciously allowed me to reproduce it here, paywall-free. "Whose idea was this," began the email from an actual Member of Parliament to the Lib Dem press office, "Danny with a [...]
Imagine being a member of a political party which prides itself on policy crafted by individuals which are valued in their own right, not for their morally arbitrary characteristics. It shouldn't be too hard to imagine, because it is what our party sells itself as. Now imagine that upon joining that party you are told that actually what you are is just a good pair of legs to deliver leaflets, that you should instead accept that some people know better than you as a consequence of again arbitrary characteristics, and that regardless of your actual experiences that people are right ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: Clare confided that in her previous life, not long after she had agreed to join the staff of former Labor minister Greg Combet, she was told that if she wanted to know what her life would be like as a press secretary, she should read my book, So Greek. She reached the bit where, early one day, my old boss, the treasurer, Peter Costello, sent the receptionist, Philippa, to get me out of the toilet in his Melbourne office, and I ended the same day by dropping the F-bomb on him in his Sydney hotel ...
[IMG: 2016 Election Essentials Blog image 500 x 375] With less than 2 months to go until polling day we want to make sure candidates and agents are ready for the elections and have all of the deadlines marked out that they need for their expenses and to ensure their candidate is registered. AGENTS Local election agents are formally appointed by the candidate as [...]
George Osborne's budget was an incoherent collection of gimmicks. It was not designed with any other purpose but the promotion of its author and a certain faux stability ahead of the EU referendum in three months time. So, easy to criticize, but the fact is that at the moment, no political party in the UK is prepared to suggest the kind of reforms that are needed. The political cycle is too short for any government to reap the reward of the kind of radical changes that are required, but not long enough for the same government to avoid the negative ...
I spotted it. A reader nominated it. The judges love it. The Evening Standard receives our Headline of the Day Award.
Watch the latest video from the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign: We have just 100 days left to secure our future – Prime Minister David Cameron and a range of campaigners from around the country speak out on why remaining in the EU is important to them. If you'd like to know more about the wider topic, see my other European referendum posts, and in particular Nick Clegg's demolition of the anti-EU case.
Naturally, with so much media and public attention on the Budget, few with have spotted some major defeats for the Government in the House of Lords last night. Most significantly our Liberal Democrat initiative to stop the Tories skewing party funding legislation in their favour was given huge support - across the House, with even some Conservative Peers rebelling or abstaining. Ministers' plans suffered a resounding defeat - 320 to 172, a majority of 148 This is our best chance in this Parliament to get the parties thinking again about the wider issue of funding democracy in a way which ...
Part of the kitchen we need to keep our children way from!! This is the speech I have made today as the spokesperson at the LGA for Public Health. Child Obesity is a real problem for Liverpool as it is ... Continue reading →
Over the past few weeks you could be forgiven for assuming that the party is in a bit of a mess on the fracking issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Scottish and Welsh devolved governments both had a moratorium on fracking on the basis of inherent risks in the technology, with unquantified dangers of seismic disturbance and pollution of water tables, as well as (still unaddressed) risks of waste material transport, treatment and disposal. Permitting planning authorities to reject fracking on these grounds is important. Both our Welsh and Scottish parties supported these moratoria. When a moratorium ...
Meols Ward Lib Dem Councillors John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and Jo Barton are holding their next advice centre in Churchtown. We will be at Cafe Moo Moo on Cambridge Road (by the junction with Preston New Road, next to Boots) from 10:30 to 11:30 am on Thursday 24th March. We will be there to meet you and discuss any Council problems you may have. No appointment necessary. Just pop in. We also hold a monthly advice centre in Crossens, at St John's School, Rufford Road, Crossens every month (except August) on the second Saturday of the month from 11:00 am ...
Transportfocus/Passenger Voice in their March 2016 newsletter tackle this issue and the results are frankly unsurprising. I have always wondered whether some bus companies realise they are offering a service that needs to be on time, comfortable, friendly and something you would want to use rather than having to use. Buses running early, grumpy drivers that don't like giving change, no apology for buses that don't turn up. Is there any wonder travel on local buses is hardly a pleasant experience? Read on to see what Passenger Voice says:- Do passengers trust the bus? How do you turn a bus ...
Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Willie Rennie said today that the Scottish party's policy of putting a penny on income tax to help fund education 'ticks all the boxes' as a new poll showed public opinion in tune with the party. Improving education was cited by 22% of respondents as their number one priority for the [...]
I bumped into the Lords Home Office minister immediately after one of the Government's socking defeats on the Trade Union Bill, consoling himself that losing by 17 in the vote on an Immigration Bill amendment time-limiting immigration detention was almost a victory. But the Government lost – we won! The amendment was led by crossbencher Lord Ramsbotham, who was Chief Inspector of Prisons and so knows whereof he speaks, supported by the Labour and the Liberal Democrat front benches: 63% of our peers voted compared with 46% of Labour's. Of course it may not stick. The Bill will go back ...
[IMG: European Council / Council of the EU] European Council / Council of the EU One of the recurring threads of the EU referendum campaign has been the need for reform. What gets lost in that is that the EU has been on a continual process of reform from its inception. While proponents of Brexit argue for reform in a way that sometimes leaves me wondering whether their comments are based on their fantasies of the EU or reality, the EU has been getting on with it. On 16 March Guy Verhofstadt tweeted his pleasure at the EU Council adopting ...
...the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not... Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads To Freedom, 1918 There are two types of benefit fraud going on. There's the sort that the Daily Mail and various populist TV shows enjoy making a song-and-dance about. Then there's the more prevalent fraud, with targets to deny people the money they and their families need to live, to "sanction" them on flimsy pretexts, to require people with mental and physical disabilities to undergo lengthy and stressful appeals ...
Don't argue about the sugar tax like it's never been tried before. I have seen a number of articles about the sugar tax that argue or even assume that it will fail to reduce consumption of sugary drinks. What these arguments tend to overlook is that these kinds of taxes have been tried in other jurisdictions. The Economist [...]
Scottish Liberal Democrats MSP Tavish Scott has expressed astonishment at plans to re-introduce retired HST125 rolling stock from the Great Western Railway to provide new services to the North East of the country. The 40 year old trains are due a refit before returning to service but Scott remains unconvinced:- "People in the North and [...]
Thu 17th
11:09
Holding the Welsh Government to account or how a bill was lost because of a personal slur
In the end it took a cheap political jibe to bring Plaid Cymru to their senses and oppose unevidenced proposals that should never have been in the Public Health Bill in the first place. For possibly only the first or second time during this Assembly the combined opposition flexed its muscles and did the job it is there for, holding the Government to account, scrutinising its legislation and opposing misconceived and unsupportable measures. The bill itself was flawed in my view. The inclusion of a partial ban on vaping was unnecessary and was not supported by the evidence. Many Plaid ...
Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Willie Rennie has slammed yesterday's budget as continuing the trend of offering record breaking tax cuts to some of the richest people in society. He also said that he expected Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson to offer to extend the tax breaks to Scotland. Rennie said:- "This budget was George Osborne's [...]
Often with questions like these, people use their own experiences to illustrate the lack of (in this case) liberalism in the country. I'm going to do the opposite. This won't be an answer with figures and alternative models behind it, but it's this personal experience that motivates me to fight for the Liberal Democrats. I was brought up in a regular middle class household; both my parents had secure jobs and owned their own house (albeit with a mortgage). My parents were from working class families who struggled to make ends meet, but they were classic examples of showing hard ...
Despite being highly touted earlier in the race to be the US Republican Presidential nominee, Marco Rubio is now out of contention. What went wrong for his campaign? Rubio's strategy was always an inside straight—overly reliant on a candidate's ability to dominate free national media in order to outperform, outwit and eventually outlast a wide field of rivals... So while other campaigns touted "shock and awe" fundraising networks and precise, psychographic analytics and voter targeting operations, Rubio's tight-knit group of mostly 40-something bros believed wholeheartedly that they didn't need a specific early-state win. They didn't need a particular political base. ...
Hello everyone and welcome to the newly relaunched libdemhame.org website. The old site went off line over Christmas for a few reasons but we are now back, hopefully with a new and improved service in the run up to crucial national and local elections in the next 14 months, not to mention the small matter [...]
The Apple vs FBI case is relevant to everyone, Brits too The Very Hungry Caterpillar Who Then Came to Realize That Life Was Meaningless This Guy Created A Fake Tinder Profile To See The Hell Women Really Go Through On the one hand, it's probably good that he's interested. On the other, it's a bit shit that men won't believe this unless and until they experience it for themselves Meet the teenage girl who just won $150,000 for inventing a device to diagnose lung disease Baroness Featherstone: The Tories continue to attack the planet Instagram Productive use of office floor ...
Thu 17th
09:28
Budget 2016: it's amazing how far George Osborne suddenly feels from being prime minister
Only a few short months ago, it was accepted wisdom within Westminster that George Osborne was going to become the next prime minister. "The one chart that shows how George Osborne is almost certainly going to be our next Prime Minister," the Independent declared back before 2015 conference season, and that is but one of the numerous examples of this line of commentary from the period. Now, in the shadow of yesterday's budget, everyone appears to be writing him off. In particular, members of the Conservative Party – and they are the ones who ultimately count in all this. I ...
Thu 17th
09:27
Those members of Calderdale Liberal Democrats who enjoyed our guest speaker at our AGM...
... may be interested to know that she is writing a book based partially on the speech and Q&A she gave us. If you would like a copy you can back the kickstarter here. The amount being asked for the Kickstarter is symbolic — £1,008 is the fee for UK citizenship *after* you've already passed the so-called citizenship test and paid thousands in visas, which Holly has. I've gone for the signed copy, myself. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
I'm glad to be in a party where sexual harassment is taken seriously, and I don't doubt that everybody has good intentions. Let me explain why that isn't nearly enough. A man walks into a bar. He buys a drink. He chats with a friend about the policy debate they've both come from, and they have a lively disagreement. He contemplates getting food. He gets talking to a young woman who he finds attractive, but she doesn't seem interested so he doesn't push it. He gets another drink. A woman walks into the same bar. A strange man twice her ...
@julianhuppert @torproject pic.twitter.com/ZSXny3neyR — DrColinW (@sxybio) March 17, 2016
Wednesday: In Gideon's Reheated Black-Hole Budget nothing actually adds up. It's almost like he's not got the Lib Dems there to do the maths for him! Tax on sugar, that was his (sugar-free) Easter Bunny - money he immediately spent again, so does nothing to bridge the gap between taxing and spending, and a balanced budget slips further beyond his reach. The growth forecasts are down, the borrowing forecasts are up... and then, like an underpants gnome, with one bound* he leaps to surplus by 2020. But how? The economy is slowing, the deficit is growing... so let's cut taxes. ...
Thu 17th
07:59
EURef Roundup: NATO, car making, travel agents, Lynton Crosby's advice and some local analysis...
Brexit would weaken NATO says a senior US general. Alan Johnson says the Leave campaign is "Project Fantasy": Project Fantasy goes like this. Diminish Britain's standing by suggesting that Europe is somehow something that is done to us; ignore the ways in which, from terrorism to climate change, we are far more effective working with our partners; label all workers' protections "red tape" and say the economy would be better off if we could scrap them; ignore the huge economic benefits our EU membership has brought us and try to convince people that there is a land of milk and ...
Ireland is perpetually reminded these days that it is exactly 100 years since the Easter Rising of 1916, when a small force of revolutionary militia, combining romantic nationalists and hardline socialists, seized control of various strong points of central Dublin and held them for five days before surrendering to British forces diverted from the war then raging in Europe. The events touched many people, some in unexpected ways. Nevil Shute, the classic stiff-upper-lip British writer of solid yet moving engineering stories, best known in sf circles for the twice-filmed 1957 post-apocalyptic On The Beach, a novel of a dying Australia, ...
Mancunicon Progress Report (PDF) Includes my tribute to @iannmcdonald, pp 14-15. (tags: sf ) What's the secret of getting hard-boiled eggs to peel easily? This is important. #fb (tags: cooking ) The Rise of Trump Shows the Danger and Sham of Compelled Journalistic "Neutrality" Tremendous piece. (tags: uspolitics media ) The Very Hungry Caterpillar Who Then Came to Realize That Life Was Meaningless As it should have been! (tags: comics funny ) The Power of Mental Models: How Flight 32 Avoided Disaster Fascinating. #fb (tags: psychology )
