Those considering a vote for the Green Party of Wales in the forthcoming Welsh Senedd elections need to be reminded that doing so will only hand seats on the regional lists to UKIP. Those who care about the environment, but who don't want to see UKIP's English Tory rejects elected to office, should instead cast their vote for the Welsh Liberal Democrats. There is much to be commended about the core elements of the Green Party for Wales' Welsh Election Campaign that launched today. What is there not to like about better public services, strong local economies, community renewable energy ...
Vince Cable says the Conservatives are suffering without the Lib Dems as a "moderating influence" https://t.co/OORxrfe5tS — Sky News (@SkyNews) March 21, 2016
Dr James Walsh the Liberal Democrat candidate for Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner visited Hastings town centre on Monday to meet with businesses and clergy, and to take the temperature of town centre issues in the East of Sussex. Given a tour by Castle Ward Liberal Democrat campaigner, Nick Perry, Dr Walsh heard about some [...]
Yesterday morning I was sat at home in Derby, working through my father's photographic archive. I happened to scan this photograph of Exeter Cathedral, dated 1951. Even though I know the Cathedral well, it took me some time to recognise it. I think this was because of the covering over the West window. I've since seen another photograph of the ... The post Exeter Cathedral: two photographs taken 65 years apart appeared first on ten pence piece.
Education has long been held-up as a sacred cow in Scotland. Arguably even more so than the National Health Service. For decades Scotland has lived-off its reputation for comprehensive, broad, inclusive education and the pedigree of the Enlightenment and the contribution of its Universities sector to philosophy, economics, law, the sciences and medicine. This reputation is one that ignores an underlying reality: that Scottish education, at all levels, has stagnated since devolution. Secondary school pupils are presented for fewer qualifications, on average, than they were before, primary and early secondary school literacy, numeracy and science education rates have fallen behind ...
I found these ghost signs while exploring the Narborough Road in Leicester, recently named (through gritted teeth) as Britain's most multicultural high street by the Daily Mail. Sid Mottram Cycles closed in 1985 and the premises is now occupied by a barber's shop. Confirming my theory that immigration often preserves or restores British traditions, the barber offers wet shaves to his customers.
Mon 21st
20:30
LibLink: Floella Benjamin on International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Embed from Getty Images Floella Benjamin has written an article on Huffington Post titled: Let's End Discrimination in All Its Forms She writes: I have been dealing with the issue of diversity all my life and professionally for over forty years. That started when I asked a television producer why we couldn't have a more diverse portrayal of professional black characters, such as lawyers and accountants and he dismissively told me 'that is not realistic'! I knew it was blatantly not true because my family were all high professional achievers and I was surrounded by ambitious and successful people from ...
Embed from Getty Images In York, conference voted to create a regulatory framework for cannabis. This is a move that I wholeheartedly support and I'd like to draw on the example of Colorado to explain why. On the 1st of January 2014, Colorado fully legalised cannabis for recreational purposes. Within four months they raised $10 million dollars in tax revenue which they invested in education and infrastructure. Crime dropped by 10% and violent crime dropped by 5%. The marijuana industry also created thousands of jobs and by October unemployment was at its lowest since 2008. Colorado also legalised marijuana for ...
George Osborne's budget announced the biggest appropriation of Church land since the Reformation, as John Elledge demonstrates. "As anyone involved in the fight to save London's council housing knows, the boroughs at the forefront of the social cleansing of our city over the last fifteen years are Labour boroughs." Architects for Social Housing are not taken in by Labour's rhetoric. Michael Gerson says the Republicans are staining themselves by sticking with Donald Trump. Exposure to nature makes people happy and could cut mental health inequalities between the rich and poor, argues Natasha Gilbert. The decline of Ricky Gervais is itemised ...
Following the changes to the Safer Stronger Community Group boundaries, a new group has been formed that covers the whole of Yate, Dodington, Chipping Sodbury, Old Sodbury, Little Sodbury and Horton. The first meeting of the new group is on the 29th March at 7pm in Yate Library and will include information on the current consultation on Library Services.
Royal Mail delivered a new Stronger IN leaflet to me this morning. It is going out around the country this week. This is the second Stonger IN delivery this year – so far none from the Leave campaign, at least not in my postcode area. It's a A3 leaflet setting out advantages for us all of being IN and dangers of leaving Europe. [IMG: Strongerinmarchoutside] [IMG: strongerinmarchinside (2)] It is my understanding that the last Stonger IN delivery went to 10m households (about a third of the country). As any campaign manager knows, cloth has to be cut according to ...
Second paragraph of third chapter of Alice in Wonderland: The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, `I am older than you, and must know better'; and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to ...
Mon 21st
17:28Five years into a revolution betrayed - Liberal Democrats need to build links with Syrians
[IMG: Syrians] Note, this post contains descriptions of torture that some readers may find distressing. Five years ago, on Friday 18th March 2011, Syrian civilians in the southern town of Deraa took to the streets to demand freedom, dignity and a fair future. The regime of Bashar al-Assad and his coterie responded immediately with deadly force, and over the following weeks more and more protesters were shot down, more and more mourners were murdered while attending funerals and more and more innocent Syrians were rounded up for torture – in many cases never to be seen again. In May 2011 ...
[IMG: Scary Future]
Barack Obama's visit to Cuba will probably go down in history as a seminal moment, such as Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. I was in Taipei then, taking a year abroad from my Chinese course at Oxford, and I was struck how terrified my host family was. They feared that the United States [...]
Stephen Crabb may have insisted that cuts to disability benefits are restored as a condition of him taking on the Work and Pensions job, but that has not left him in the clear with disabled groups in his own constituency. As The Times reports nearly 10,000 people have signed a petition demanding his resignation as patron of a local Mencap group because he voted in favour of a £30 cut in ESA for those in the work group. We wait with baited breath as to whether he decides to reverse this cut in his new role as well.
Embed from Getty Images Last week, as a governor, I spent my morning at my local primary school completing an annual return and reviewing our budget for the next financial year (as an accountant, I get all the fun jobs). The atmosphere was a strange one. As a school that has successfully fought off an attempt at academy conversion, the staff were deeply upset about the grand announcement from George Osborne, that all schools will become academies by 2020. Meanwhile, our excellent Local Education Authority advisor was clearly and understandably out of sorts having just been made effectively redundant. The ...
Over the past few years the advice of people I hold in high regard as well as some valuable mistakes of mine have taught me it is best only to speak when you have something to say. This is not an ethos befitting the Liberal Youth Chatbox. I am currently running for the position of [...]
The last few days of political news have been dominated by the fall out from the Budget, catalysed by Iain Duncan Smith's resignation on Friday night. We've seen more and more recent Budgets dominate the news cycle for weeks before and after, but I think we need to question whether the whole institution of the Budget needs to go. Note that I'm talking about the Budget as an event, not the whole concept of government's budgeting which remains a good idea. No, what I'm questioning is the whole theatrics of 'the Budget' and Budget Day and whether they're actually useful ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Alison McInnes MSP has today criticised SNP Ministers for not standing up for Scottish children, highlighting their failure to raise the age of criminal responsibility, provide equal protection against assault and ensure timely access to mental health treatment. The Scottish Government has today published its response to the UN's Committee [...]
Editor's Note: The party has been running an essay competition for members of the Liberal Democrats, to submit 1000 words on the theme "What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today." The deadline for contributions was in November and the winner was announced at Spring Conference. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to voice@libdemvoice.org.uk. Some things do not change. Liberalism is always, everywhere, about freedom. Historically this was freedom from - from political or religious authority; from the king, the church, or foreign power. In the west many such freedoms have been won, or ...
The unexpected resignation of Iain Duncan-Smith has got all the political comentators in a big tizzy. The best explanation I've heard was that he had initially decided against resigning but had a rush of blood to the head when he saw the Treasury's statement after the budget, trying to shift the blame onto him and his deparatment. There is no doubt that, since the Cosnervatiev Party effectively divided itself in two - there being little effective politial opposition to them these days - it means that the insurgent coup plotters around Johnson, Gove and the Brexit advocates are able to ...
[IMG: Investment spending vs social security spending] If actual government investment spending bore any relation to the amount of time politicians spent talking about it, Britain would surely have one of the highest rates of government investment in the world. In fact, for all the talk there are few signs of a reversal in one half of the most notable trend in Britain's public finances over the last half century: the decline of government investment. I say one half because there is another part of the trend, and it is the flip side of the same coin: the general trend ...
Here's the latest news as I understand it for the celebrations in the Maghull, Lydiate, Melling and Aintree Village communities. [IMG: Canal BiCentenary] * I can confirm that Lydiate Parish Council has pledged a donation of £1000 towards the celebrations. * The launch event will take place at Mersey Motorboat Club in Lydiate on 4th June. No details known as yet – could be a boaters event or public? [IMG: A Maghull canal scene between the Green Lane and Westway road bridges. ] A Maghull canal scene between the Green Lane and Westway road bridges. * A flotilla of canal ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe:
The Liberal Democrats are the party of evidence-based politics. We form our policies not based on blindly-followed ideology, but by proposing workable solutions to society's problems. In my view this is what makes our party great. With this in mind, I broadly welcome our approach to the public versus private sector debate, which I'll address in the latter part of this post. However, Conference's vote to approve fracking in Scotland is concerning in comparison to the party's renewed opposition in England. I welcome this opposition for two pragmatic reasons. Firstly, there are serious short-terms risks to fracking, such as water ...
Liberal Democrat candidate for Edinburgh Northern & Leith, Martin Veart, will be speaking tonight at the Teviot Debating Hall in Edinburgh as part of a hustings organised by Edinburgh Students Union Association (EUSA) and the Edinburgh Political Union. The event, which is subtitled 'Education and Funding', will see Martin joined on the panel by Holyrood [...]
In his first budget in 2010 George Osborne, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the personal allowance for liability to pay income tax by £1000, thus putting £200 per year into the pockets of those people lucky enough both to have a job and to have a wage sufficient to make them liable to tax. However, he also raised VAT, an indirect tax that impinges more on the poor than the comfortably-of, from 17.5% to 20% In the same budget Osborne: switched the link for benefits payments form the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the lower Consumer Price Index (CPI);froze ...
Cut benefits rather than pensions because pensioners vote tory & claimants don't? I'm SHOCKED. SHOCKED I say! Don't forget to update your Kindle if you have one Ever fancied working in comics? Paid gig going here. RT @OldmoatLibDem: I got 15! I win :) (choosing to count myself among homosexuals even though I'm "only" bi, mind) Disability and British policy: a personal reflection | Slugger O'Toole Interesting by @nwbrux - some more activisty ASD ppl might object to some of the wording, but still interesting IMHO Instagram Spike demonstrates how to get oneself into a comfy position #dogsofinstagram #dogs #lurcher ...
I recently published the 2nd email newsletter for members in the North East about my Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner campaign. You can read it on this link.
[IMG: time] Before the election period really begins, the agent for the campaign should think about sitting down with the elections office in your area to finalise the details of the election. Also book a meeting with your election office to hand in the nomination papers and to check where this is done for the Police and [...]
[IMG: Willie Rennie values] Willie Rennie, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, has been banned from meeting staff at Amazon's base in Dunfermline today. He was planning to meet staff there to discuss their working conditions, but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute by Amazon bosses in London. Willie is campaigning to stop the Scottish Government from giving hand-outs to companies which do not pay their staff at least at the Scottish Living Wage rate of £8.25 an hour. Under the current arrangements, over £5 million has been paid to Amazon in Scotland even though the company is ...
For more details see press article here.
I'll nail my colours to the mast here, straight off: I don't see how Osborne becomes prime minister from here. A lot of commentators are saying the same thing, but are hedging their bets, saying George has wounded himself, perhaps fatally, but there is probably some way back from this budget. No hedging about it from these quarters: I just don't see a way back for the chancellor. There are several things we've learned about Cameron during the six years he's been in Number 10. One of the big lessons is that he's absolutely terrified of the right of his ...
The Conservative party is to use headhunters to scour the country in an effort to find a new and more diverse generation of election candidates. The Tories plan to search local business groups, women's networks and community organisations for people who could represent the party in parliament, on local councils, and in other positions such as school governors... One of the main issues Lord Feldman's review has identified is diversity. Although there are more female Conservative MPs than ever before — with one in five of the party at Westminster being women — only a third of the party's candidates ...
[IMG: key_conference_register] Hi! My name is Diane and I am disabled. Now I have made that confession, I would like to share my reflections of being a first time attendee at conference. A few months before the conference I deliberated whether or not to attend the spring conference in York. Due to my disability I required support to attend the conference and this can be quite costly as most things are for disabled people. Also I was unsure what actually happens at conference and I was concerned that I did not have enough knowledge to fully engage with the motions ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP will today (Monday) say his party will put a stop to Scottish Government hand-outs to companies not paying their staff at least the Living Wage, as he looks to make Scotland a fairer place to work in. Mr Rennie was due to meet staff at Amazon's Dunfermline base [...]
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 21 MARCH 2016 Glenagnes Street (Ashbank Road for 100m westwards) - closed from Monday 21 March for 5 days for demolition works. Tay Square - closed from Monday 21 March for 5 days for BT duct laying. Nethergate (at Park Place) - off-peak temporary traffic lights from Tuesday 22 to Thursday 24 March for BT duct installation. Perth Road (at Farington Street) - temporary traffic lights for 2 weeks for footway reconstruction. Lochee Road (at Blinshall Street) - off-peak (9.30am - 3.30pm) temporary traffic lights on Thursday 24 ...
Grayling's arguments exposed in Brussels Eurosceptic myths busted. (tags: eu ukpolitics ) This Is What It's Like Being An Ambassador To An Anti-Gay Country When You're A Lesbian Judith Gough speaks. (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality ukraine ) Comiccon Brussels review @Torettox84 had the same experience as me at @Comic_Con_BXL. (tags: sf Belgium ) The Norwegian TV series that's enraged the Kremlin - POLITICO Fascinating! (tags: tv norway russia ) Deze Nederlandse dramaserie toont het 'echte' Brussel Dutch series takes "House of Cards" to the EU. (tags: eu tv netherlands )
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 Camp Road, St Albans from its junction with B691 Stanhope Road south eastwards to its junction with Ninedells Place, [...]
