Crossens Saturday, 14th May, St John's Primary School, Rufford Road, Crossens, between 11am and 12 noon. Churchtown Thursday, 26th May at Cafe Moo Moo on Cambridge Road (by the junction with Preston New Road, next to Boots) Churchtown, between 10:30 am and 11:30 am.
This evening the annual Europe Day concert in St John's Smith Square — sponsored by the Netherlands EU presidency and the London office of the European Commission — featured music by Lully, Hellendaal, Handel, Vivaldi and van Wassenaer, performed by the European Union Baroque Orchestra and three singers from the European Opera Centre — two [...]
Channel 4 News have now named nine of the Tory MPs being investigated by the police in connection with allegations of expenses irregularities: The MPs we understand are being looked at are Amanda Milling, for Cannock Chase; Michael Ellis for Northampton North; Stuart Andrew for Pudsey, Horsforth & Aireborough; David Nuttall for Bury North; North Cornwall for Scott Mann; George Eustace for Cambourne and Redruth; Kevin Foster for Torbay; Oliver Colville for Plymouth Sutton and Devenport; and Graham Evans for Weaver Vale. Gloucestershire Police has not said whether their investigation is looking at Cheltenham MP Alex Chalk or Stroud MP ...
If you enjoyed this then try a documentary on the Liverpool Overhead Railway.
1:01, Burn the Witch The way the staccato, Stravinskian strings drop away for the first time, to be replaced by low, brooding cellos and Thom Yorke's full, wailing repeat of the track's title, hits you with the same kind of gut-wrenching, suddenly sickening intensity as you feel when you almost fall down an open lift shaft. 3:10-3:40, Burn the Witch [...]
Whether you're an experienced netballer or you've never played before, you are invited to take part in a fun netball tournament in Reddish to raise money for Clic Sergent, the cancer charity for children and young people. Tournament organiser Ruby explains: We have chosen this charity as we currently have one of our former coaches going through cancer and it is a charity that she supports massively. We are running the tournament on the 30th May which is the bank holiday Monday and it will be running from 9am to 3pm, we are looking to run all three courts and ...
Mon 9th
20:55
Notes from Unison: tackling aggressive termination and re-engagement tactics by employers
I found some notes on this subject on the Unison website: "TACKLING DISMISSAL AND RE-ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES Introduction With funding cuts hitting hard across the public services, employers are increasingly targeting terms and conditions in the search for major reductions in paybill costs. Among the strategies adopted by employers in mounting these attacks, dismissal of staff and reengagement on inferior terms and conditions has emerged as a particularly aggressive tactic. This factsheet seeks to clarify regulations relating to dismissal and re-engagement as well as exploring the options available to branches in responding to such policies. The organising response Legal avenues in ...
This is the tenth anniversary of my first post on Liberal Burblings, which was on May 7th 2006. That post had already been published elsewhere, so my first original post here was about Christian Aid week on May 18th 2006. Since then I've written 6,669 posts and received 664,620 "hits". Looking back on my posts I am often genuinely surprised that I wrote particular posts (I had forgotten all about them) – especially ones where I obviously spent ages doing research. The weird and wonderful subjects covered bewilder me in retrospect. Thank you for reading along the years and I ...
Whilst of course my first preference for London Mayor would be Caroline Pigeon, I can offer a warm welcome to the new incumbent, Sadiq Khan. I can do that because Sadiq's achievement is an embodiment of Liberal Democrat principles, which is that you should have an equal opportunity to succeed irrespective of your background, gender, [...]
Looking back on my posts so far, I realised that of the plays I know well I have yet to post about Julius Caesar. Fortunately this question is a jolly good excuse to turn to that play: Mark Antony's funeral oration for Caesar, turning an initially unsympathetic crowd against the conspirators, is a masterpiece of oratory. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you ...
Photo of Hallaton © Colin Smith These is a dramatised ghost story on the BBC iPlayer at the moment called The Parson. What interested me at once is that it is clearly based on the traditional bottle-kicking and hare-pie scrambling that takes place in the Leicestershire village of Hallaton every Easter Monday. Sure enough, the dramatist David Varela confirms that the play was: inspired by the ancient pagan tradition of Bottlekicking in my parents' home village of Hallaton. The reality is pretty horrific, so turning it into a horror story was easy.I have not heard the end of it yet, ...
Channel 4 has now named 9 of the Conservative MPs who are being investigated over their general election expense returns: Stuart Andrew (Pudsey – Conservative hold in 2015) Oliver Colville (Plymouth Sutton and Devonport – Conservative hold in 2015) Michael Ellis (Northampton North – Conservative hold in 2015) George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth – Conservative hold in 2015) Graham Evans (Weaver Vale – Conservative hold in 2015) Scott Mann (North Cornwall – Conservative gain from Lib Dem in 2015) Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase – Conservative hold in 2015) David Nuttall (Bury North – Conservative hold in 2015) Kevin Foster (Torbay ...
On Thursday, helped by my second vote, Labour's Willy Bach was elected as the new police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire. After the Liberal Democrat and Ukip candidates had been eliminated, he beat his Conservative opponent by 78,188 votes to 58,305. This represented quite a turnaround on the result in 2012. Then the Conservative Clive Loader (who stood down at this election) won at the second stage by 64,661 votes to Labour's 51,835. Over the weekend there was gossip about irregularities in the postal votes cast. Today's Leicester Mercury quotes a spokeswoman for Leicestershire police: "We have received an allegation ...
Mon 9th
19:26
Devon & Cornwall police call in another force to investigate Tory election expense allegations
The BBC reports: A newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) is facing calls to "stand aside" while she is investigated by police. Officers are examining Alison Hernandez's role in submitting expenses for Tory MP Kevin Foster in 2015. Conservative, Ms Hernandez, was elected as Devon and Cornwall's PCC on Friday. Her political opponents say there is a "conflict of interest", but Ms Hernandez says she will have no contact with officers investigating expenses. Tudor Evans, Labour leader of Plymouth City Council, said: "She's under investigation, her Conservative colleagues are being investigated and she's a politically controlled PCC." He added ...
A couple of days ago I wrote: Barnet Returning Officer faces financial penalty after polling blunder means voters wrongly turned away ... Barnet's spectacular failure in the London elections [was] failing to provide accurate lists of voters for the staff to use at polling stations. In fact, things have gone one step further: The chief executive of Barnet Council has left his role after a blunder led to some voters being turned away from polling stations on Thursday. Andrew Travers left the authority by "mutual agreement" after the error, officials said. [BBC] Interested in more stories about how our elections ...
Embed from Getty Images Many in the UK who would drive down to Portsmouth will often think that going any further south would take you to France and the lands beyond. However, just off the coast there exists a place that for a long time has been off the Lib Dems' map. An ancient Isle that once in the 1970s held one of the only Liberal lights in the country, but now for over 15 years has been swallowed by a blue fog as thick as the ocean itself. The once golden yellow beaches lie empty and cold. Why would ...
Two Flags – One Country – One Future Some people might be surprised by this headline. "Surely", they might say, "you've just been a candidate in the Mayoral Election. Wasn't that important after all?" Of course the recent local ... Continue reading →
Embed from Getty Images Wendell Wilkie. A name to conjure with. He was the Republican presidential nominee in 1940 and lost to F.D.Roosevelt. He was a rare Republican interventionist, favouring more involvement in World War Two (pre-Pearl Harbour) to support Britain and the allies. He is significant this year because the occasion of his nomination was the last time either of the two main US political parties put forward a presidential nominee who had no experience as an elected office holder or as a "war hero". Now we have Donald Trump fulfilling both of those qualifications. ....Unless he's suddenly going ...
The results are all finally in! Of the 10 trans & non-binary candidates who stood, one – Anwen Muston – has been elected. This brings the total number of openly trans elected politicians to an all-time high of three, or approximately 1 in 6000 councillors in England. (There are none in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland that we know of) Congratulations to Councillor Anwen Muston and commiserations to all those who were not successful this time. I hope I will be able to include many of in next years' reporting! Whilst the increasing number of candidates standing is good news ...
Identifying the second paragraph of the third section (there are no chapters) was not completely straightforward. The various sections are set off with blank lines between them; the third section thus set off has only one paragraph! But the second section is split at one point by a horizontal line, at the top of a page, so I'm taking that as a sign that it's meant to be a section break. The second paragraph following the horizontal line, you'll be fascinated to know, is: There was an ache in the child's throat because she wanted to say, I guess i ...
Embed from Getty Images One of the phrases most guaranteed to start a healthy discussion is Economic Liberalism. This is, I feel, due to differing perceptions of what the phrase means. One that has considerable traction is one that conflates Economic Liberalism with the Economic Liberalisation of Thatcherism and Blairism, which were in turn often driven by neo-liberal ideas. Given the damage many feel neo-liberalism has done economically and socially, I can understand why there is such a visceral reaction to neo-liberalism and thus Economic Liberalism. To me however Economic Liberalism is very far removed from neo-liberalism. Economic Liberalism means ...
LD Jamie Capp 361 [25.6%; +25.6%] Conservative 356 [25.3%; -17%] Independent 282 [20%; +20%] UKIP 217 [15.40%; -26.8%] Labour 133 [9.44%; -3. 6%] Green 60 [4.26%; +4.7%] Majority: 5 LD gain from Conservative Percentage change since 2015
Embed from Getty Images The landscape of British politics has just shifted a small step towards the progressive stance of the Liberal Democrats. The #LibDemFightback is truly underway. This time we gained more seats than any other party in England. This time we gained Edinburgh Western from the SNP in Scotland. And this time we became the only opposition to the Labour party on Manchester council. Our status as the part of communities has truly been backed by voters, and so thousands of voters now have a Liberal Democrat fighting their corner. Even in the areas where we have not ...
Below are the brilliant results from Southport. Never before throughout the whole history of the borough have we won every seat. That goes back to the granting of the borough's charter in 1858! Lynne Thompson Liberal Democrats 1713 42% Elected Jamie Halsall Conservative Party 1149 28% Not elected Mhairi McLeod Johnstone Doyle The Labour Party 729 18% Not elected Duncan Browne United Kingdom Independence Party 394 10% Not elected Barbara Ann Dutton The Green Party 133 3% Not elected Birkdale - resultsElection CandidatePartyVotes% Richard Ronald Hands Liberal Democrats 1443 46% Elected Ged Wright The Labour Party 717 23% Not elected ...
I was struck today but the reporting on a focus group in Nuneaton - with a fair amount reflecting people's views of Jeremy Corbyn and most interestingly, their view of his clothes. It seems the voters of Nuneaton are underwhelmed by Mr Corbyn, and also feel he is "scruffy". The most interesting aspect of this is they seem to directly link the scruffiness to him being unfit for the position of Prime Minister. This I thought was interesting, as logic would dictate this items wouldn't naturally fit together. But then I thought that female politicans appearance is often picked over ...
[IMG: Your Liberal Britain] Political democracy; what does this actually mean? In 1948, Winston Churchill in a speech stated 'The government is the servant of the people and not its master.' Let us look at what that statement means today. Pressure groups form or back a political party with the sole purpose of getting that party elected and getting the policies that they want enacted put into place. Policies are packaged into a bundle along with others and sprinkled with 'glitter' and put to the public to vote upon. Election campaigns consist of each party telling the public that this ...
[IMG: Election Polling Station SignA] There's a new law in politics: whenever there's been an election with a disappointing turnout (so, pretty much any time there's an election in the UK) someone will pipe up with 'we should vote on the internet, that'll boost turnout'. Someone (occasionally me) will point out that there are lots of problems with the idea of online voting, most notably that creating an online balloting process that's acceptably secure and secret is the sort of problem that stumps computer scientists. The response is usually to wish away these problems (which, to be fair, is something ...
Like many other people I watched the BAFTAs last night and heard Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky accuse the government of trying to "eviscerate" the BBC and Channel 4. He quite rightly got a standing ovation for his speech. Kosminsky told viewers that Government proposals to appoint a majority of members on a new BBC board threatened its independence and would turn it into a state broadcaster "a bit like ... those bastions of democracy Russia and North Korea". He said the government wanted to tell the BBC what programmes to make and when to schedule them: "It's not their ...
Former Lib Dem MP for Torbay Adrian Sanders has reported that another police force is being called in to investigate allegations that the Tories broke election spending rules at the general election: Breaking News – Devon & Cornwall Constabulary to ask another Force to take over the investigation in totality. The reason? The newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner, Alison Hernandez, was the Conservative election agent at the general election in Torbay. The seat was gained by the Tories from the Liberal Democrats. Having a police force investigate its own Commissioner would have led to widespread suspicion about the conduct ...
I love it when Bernie Sanders calls for the USA to be more like social democratic Europe. Unfortunately, that's not all he is campaigning for. On his campaign web page, he says: If corporate America wants us to buy their products they need to manufacture those products in this country, not in China or other low-wage countries. That statement is very dangerous. Over the last fifty years, there has been a dramatic fall in world poverty. Not just in China, but across the developing world. This has transformed the lives of hundreds of millions. Have a look at the following ...
Labour 732 [45.6%; +7.8%] Independent 475 [29.6%; +6.5%] Conservative 352 [21.9%; -3.8%] LD Ian Jones 48 [3%; -10.5%] Majority: 257 Turnout: 25.2% Labour Hold Percentage change since 2015
The norm after elections in the UK is for the big beasts of the various parties to tour the newsrooms and point out that, given this, and considering that, and taking into account the other, their party has done quite well and is on track for even greater things. As in Alice in Wonderland, "all have won and all shall receive prizes." Last week's election was unique in that almost all Labour's big beasts seemed to be hoping for an electoral disaster so as to give them an excuse for trying to topple their leader, Jeremy Corbyn. And now this ...
My good friend Cllr. Edie Pope campaigned to get the speed limit reduced to 40mph along the section of Southport Road that leads out of Lydiate and into West Lancashire some time ago. At the Church Lane junction by St. Thomas' Church the road name changes to Mairscough Lane and it noticeably narrows to a blind bend. Sadly, the road traffic accidents have kept piling up. [IMG: Lydiate Parish Councillor Edie Pope outside her farm shop on Lydiate's Southport Road. The blind narrow bend is in the background.] Lydiate |Parish Councillor Edie Pope outside her farm shop on Lydiate's Southport ...
Watch the latest video from the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign: No-one knows what Britain out of Europe would look like - not even those who want us to leave. Share this video so everyone knows that leaving the EU is a leap into the dark - and a risk not worth taking. 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.
[IMG: tony and pw2] Here's a photograph of a very special occasion on Friday evening. At Newbury's Corn Exchange (a venue which may well go down alongside the Norbreck Castle hotel, Blackpool in Lib Dem history) there was the inaugural meeting of Wounded Liberal Democrats (canine injury branch). Our photo shows Tony Ferguson (eve of poll dog bite in Portsmouth while campaigning for Gerald Vernon-Jackson's highly successful team) and Paul Walter (dog bite while pushing in a "We called on you today" leaflet in Elizabeth O'Keeffe's victorious gain from the Tories in Newbury Victoria). These two have over sixty years ...
Another day, another Cameron v Boris Europe spat. Cameron today has set out the "emotional" case for Remain, while Boris is apparently laying out the "liberal" case for Leave. That sentence leaves no further room for satire, so I will leave it there. In arguing so vociferously for something a lot of Tories do not want, Cameron may well have made his premiership untenable for much longer, regardless of which way the country votes on June 23rd. There is an argument that if we vote to Remain by a large margin, say, north of 60% (which I still hold out ...
Herts CC's contractor plans works as follows this month: Lower Paxton, St. Albans - 24th May Paxton Road, St. Albans - 27th May Edward Close, St. Albans - 27th May
Fancy going to Accident and Emergency with conjunctivitis. I mean, what kind of feckless, ignorant type would do that? That was the sort of attitude I felt from the handful of medical staff I encountered there early on Saturday morning. It wasn't even bad conjunctivitis, and actually it wasn't even mine: it was my nine-year-old's. But when your child's eyes swell up in the early hours of Saturday and they are tearing at them with their fingers, you have to do something. It isn't as if you can wait until Monday morning for the surgery to open. So what were ...
The party whose membership card I currently have sitting in my wallet, our party, is without a doubt a broad church, but I think it reasonable to presume that the vast majority of Liberal Democrats would profess to value liberty and democracy – at any rate, the two are described as 'fundamental' in the Preamble to the party's Constitution. In the light of such principles, strong support of the European Union seems a little bizarre to me. Movement towards centralisation and 'ever closer union' contradicts aspirations for increased dispersal of power and encouragement of diversity. I would expect us Liberal ...
Each week we look at five great things happening within the party over the past 7 days as well as a couple of things that perhaps haven't gone as well as we'd like. So here goes: GOOD 1. SCOTLAND THE BRAVE: It was a stunning night north of the border with two GAINS in North East [...]
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR WEST END WARD WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 09 MAY 2016 Fleuchar Street (Eassons Angle to Blyth Street), Blinshall Street (Lochee Road to Douglas Street) and Scott Street (City Road to Glenagnes Road) - closed for 15 weeks for SSE cable renewal works. Thomson Street (Magdalen Yard Road for 100m north) - closed for one week for service connections. Perth Road (West Park Road to Blackness Avenue) - closed from Monday 9 May for 3 weeks for carriageway resurfacing. You can read the weekly road report for the whole of Dundee here.
[IMG: European and British flags.] 9 May is Europe Day. The date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the military victory of the democratic Allies over fascism in Europe in 1945 and, in 1950, the date of the Schuman Declaration in which Robert Schuman, French foreign minister, called for a Coal and Steel Community to promote peace and prosperity. The best way to celebrate Europe Day is to help the Liberal Democrats' INTogether campaign. * Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces ...
The last counts - from Bristol City - having been completed, these are the final scores:
