Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London has made his first big transport announcement, one hour Hopper bus ticket. This isn't an original idea from the new London Mayor. Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon has been campaigning for this since 2009. This photo was taken in 2009 in tandem with this article in the Standard and the policy was in the 2012 and 2016 Lib Dem London manifesto. Boris blithely dismissed it in the same way Cameron dismissed the raising of the tax threshold policy, saying it was too complicated and costly. His successor has seen the sense in it and used ...
This is King Richard's Well where, legend has it, Richard III drank before the Battle of Bosworth. You can find it close to Shenton station on the Battlefield Line. The plaque reads: Near this spot, on August 22nd 1485, at the age of 32, King Richard III fell fighting gallantly in defence of his realm & his crown against the usurper Henry Tudor. The Cairn was erected by Dr. Samuel Parr in 1813 to mark the well from which the king is said to have drunk during the battle. It is maintained by the Fellowship of the White Boar."Near this ...
The Conservative Party's advice to agents in marginal seats at the last election contradicted official Electoral Commission advice, suggests Mark Pack. Alwyn Turner remembers Michael Gove as a young Scotsman on the make: "No one could have behaved more naturally than he in a staffroom that looked as though it were unchanged since 1954." Does Little Sheffield show small economics can revive a post-industrial city? asks Gareth Roberts. Anthony Gottlieb on the rise and rise in the reputation of the philosopher David Hume. Simon Kuper examines the reasons for England's World Cup victory in 1966: "Perhaps the men of 1966 ...
Fri 13th
20:50
How accurate are the Thrasher and Rallings local election predictions for the Conservatives?
I've previously talked about the accuracy, or not, of the Thrasher and Rallings prediction for the Lib Dem vote share in local elections, and for Labour, but what about the Conservatives? Here is how the Thrasher and Rallings predictions have panned out for Conservative vote share* based on by-election results in advance of the big May round of elections. Forecast Tory % Actual Tory % Error in forecast 2006 33% 39% -6% 2007 39% 40% -1% 2008 n/a 43% 2009 40% 35% 5% 2010 n/a 39% 2011 35% 38% -3% 2012 34% 33% 1% 2013 29% 26% 3% 2014 30% ...
The latest edition of our email newsletter to Lib Dem members in Gateshead was finished last night. It features the local election results and the IN campaign action day (which is tomorrow). You can read it on this link.
On Wednesday afternoon news stated coming through on Twitter of a major gas leak in Market Harborough. Great Bowden Road and Station Road in Great Bowden were closed to traffic, and people in that area were being evacuated from their houses. People said you could smell gas in the town centre. More importantly, from a purely selfish point of view, the railway line through Market Harborough had been closed. Trains from Leicester to St Pancras were being diverted via Corby. I left work at 5 sharp, found no sign of the promised rail replacement bus service and caught the scheduled ...
Communities minister Greg Clark visited Shirehall yesterday and council leaders were engaged in an extensive lobbying exercise to get a fairer funding deal for our county. I have no doubt that the meeting was a useful briefing for Mr Clark, and he will have heard how different Shropshire is from his own constituency of Tunbridge... Continue reading What's on the next Shropshire Council agenda? Nothing. Zilch. Sweet Fanny Adams →
Following the local elections, Cllr Iain Roberts has been elected as Lib Dem leader on Stockport Council, with Cllr Mark Hunter elected as the Lib Dem Deputy Leader. As Labour are now the largest party in Stockport (with 23 seats out of 63, compared to 21 seats for the Lib Dems and 14 for the Conservatives), Labour now take control of Stockport Council and the Lib Dems become the main opposition party. The Lib Dems won the most seats in the local elections last week (winning 9, with Labour taking 8, the Conservatives 3 and Independent Ratepayers 1). "I would ...
Both sides in the EU debate are, sadly, relying on their own versions of "project fear." Remainers predict economic disaster if we leave, which is a gross exaggeration. Leaving will be economically damaging, but will not be a disaster - we shall survive. Brexiters play hard on a populist, and in my view unsubstantiated, fear of immigration. In an earlier post I have described how my own life is both enriched and made much more comfortable by immigrants and their offspring.. Yesterday a researchers at the London School of Economics released a report on the effect of immigration on domestic ...
Fri 13th
18:08How Tory HQ advice to marginal seat agents contradicted official Electoral Commission advice
The Electoral Commission's constituency election expenses guidance when it comes to transport costs is very clear: Candidate spending includes the costs of... transport costs for you or your campaigners. For example, hire cars or public transport.* But the national Conservative Party guidance to candidates (including MPs) and agents in key seats told them to ignore this guidance. Talking about the Battlebus tours, the guidance said: We fund all the hotel and transport. This is an election expense and is accounted for out of central campaign spend. Note the reference to "all" transport costs and central, not candidate, campaign spending. Yet ...
Dear fellow Liberal Democrats, My most sincere congratulations with your encouraging results at the local & regional elections last week. A special "congratulations" to the batch of young Liberal Democrats, who became party members and activists after your/our meltdown in 2015, and got elected within the year. I enjoyed seeing one of them, Caroline Warner, making it to the BBC online liveblog of results with her tweet, after "waking up [being} a councillor" in Tandridge. A yr ago today I woke up devastated post-election. I vowed to get stuck in and joined the @LibDems. Today I wake up as a ...
Southwark Council needs to do much more to tackle the scandal of thousands of homes left empty in Southwark. We face a local housing crisis with housing need rising all the time with the local population set to rise to 355,000 by 2025. The Council has sold or demolished 1,973 of its own homes but built just 65 since Labour took power in Southwark in May 2010. There are currently 13,000 people on the Council's housing waiting list. Southwark is reckoned to have around 2,050 empty private sector homes, including second homes and homes left empty as investment opportunities by ...
Any Welcome to Night Vale fans out there planning to go to the live shows this autumn in Paris (3 October), Cologne (7 October), Amsterdam (13 October) or London (22 October)? I will probably go to one of them - especially if I have company!
Our EU membership is holding us back from trading with the rest of the world and awful EU regulation is to blame for struggling small businesses in the UK. Sound familiar? It's the broken record of the Leave campaign's business message. This group of politicians wants to portray the UK like a child who needs to have the umbilical cord cut, in order to be set free and conquer the world. In reality, leave or stay in the EU, there is plenty we could be doing to help business and trade, all of which is within our power today. Lets ...
When my child first went to school, we had no compunction about heading to the sun in the last week of term. We felt that the experience of being away, including sitting on a bar stool with a 1000 peseta note in hand ordering "dos cafes con leche y una ague con gas pro favor" was as good for him as anything the school had to offer. In later primary school years, however, the school got clever, holding an annual talent competition on the very last day so that put paid to that. I don't think that, as a rule, ...
Your editorial yesterday on the mayoral election said "This paper has done its best to be even-handed". In this same eve of poll edition, Zac Goldsmith for the Conservatives had a big positive front-page headline (shouting out from your sandwich boards across London), the main article on page 1, most of page 2 and a double-page spread on pages 4 and 5. Sadiq Khan had a small article on page 6. (The Greens and Womens' Equality Party had later small articles, UKIP was mentioned in a process story and the LibDems had nothing at all). I humbly suggest your words ...
In the past couple of months, I have given some 30 talks and debates at schools, universities and community groups in Greater London and the South East making the case for remaining in the EU. With little over a month remaining before the referendum, an event which could profoundly change our country for the worse, now might be a good time to brainstorm with fellow campaigners on how we might best proceed. Leavers know their strength is to appeal to gut emotion and take advantage of widespread lack of knowledge of the EU after decades of poor Conservative and Labour ...
After Wednesday's fun and games in the Welsh Assembly, it has emerged that Kirsty Williams has been approached about possibly taking a seat in the Welsh Cabinet. From the BBC: BBC Wales also understands Mr Jones has discussed appointing Lib Dem AM Kirsty Williams as a cabinet minister. Meanwhile the Welsh Tories suggested they will not support Leanne Wood for first minister again without a deal. Neil Hamilton, UKIP assembly group leader, called on the smaller parties to "stick together" against Labour arrogance. The Plaid Cymru leader was backed by the Conservatives and the seven UKIP AMs, as well as ...
Editor's Note: Amy made this excellent speech in the EU debate at Welsh Conference in February. We thought this would be a good moment to share it with you. Science is at a seriously exciting time at the moment, helping crack growing problems such as global warming and cancer. British science not only needs funding from the European Research Council, but it also requires international cooperation in order to meet its potential, allowing new technology to be developed at the quickest rate possible. The great thing about science is that it doesn't have international borders; the Large Hadron Collider in ...
Fri 13th
11:55The most dangerous stretch of water in the world: The Strid at Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire
More educative entertainment from Tom Scott: I know, I know, it's a clickbait title. But I stand by it, because the water is so deceptive, and so pretty, and there's a path that leads straight down to it and that jump looks very, very possible...
During the AV campaign, we used to get upset when a TV network would bring on someone who wasn't directly involved with our campaign to speak supposedly on our behalf. It's frustrating – and can be disastrous. The best example was Chris Huhne talking about Goebbels (proving once again that bringing up the Nazis is never a good idea in political discourse). We didn't even know he was going on TV to talk about AV at all, never mind said that speaking about them in hysterical WWII references was a the way to go. But we got tarred with the ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP today said it is time for answers over the controversial memorandum of understanding signed with a Chinese firms linked to allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. Mr Rennie, who has called for the deal to be shredded, warned that the SNP government cannot stonewall the parliament and [...]
Instagram Erin working her magic with the @directionshair @ RAW Hairdressing miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 12-05-2016 posted The Blood is the Life for 12-05-2016 on #dreamwidth Instagram Just realised I forgot to do a post hairdresser selfie. God it's hot Twitter @hollyamory [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Fri 13th
10:25
LibLink: Roger Roberts: Forcing teenagers back to war zones another example of Tory inhumanity
"Inhumanity" is a word that you should use with caution, but when you are looking at a Government that has no compunction about sending child asylum seekers back to war zones the minute they turn 18, when they may have grown up here and have nothing left to go back to, then they've earned it. Roger Roberts is laying down a marker for the future as this country prepares to take in some unaccompanied child refugees. What will become of them when they turn 18? Will they be sent back to a devastated Syria where they may have no connections, ...
In-fighting amongst the Leave campaign has got so bad that key figures in the official organisation have now resorted to threatening broadcasters in revenge for them choosing rival figures to represent the anti-Europe cause in key debates. The Independent reports that ITV, Britain's main commercial broadcaster has been warned that it faces "consequences for its future" after scheduling a debate between Nigel Farage and David Cameron in the run-up to the EU referendum: In an extraordinary statement issued late last night Vote Leave accused ITV of "lying" over its plans to invite Mr Farage to take part in the debate ...
You can read all the articles that have caught my attention this week here: https://delicious.com/stephentall Below are a selection... Sponsored: 64% off Code Black Drone with HD Camera Our #1 Best-Selling Drone–Meet the Dark Night of the Sky! Analysis: "Education Excellence Everywhere" White Paper – Next Steps – CentreForum Nicky Morgan's "U-turn" – forced academisation will still apply to 80%+ of schools, suggests @CentreForum analysis: http://bit.ly/1TQbPUI Tim Harford — Article — The odds are you won't know when to quit Deal or No Deal? Turns out, says Tim Harford, we're absolutely rubbish at deciding when to quit http://bit.ly/1TC5PMo British Future ...
Although the opinion polls are close, the betting markets barely move: the punters are still backing the United States to vote for Hillary Clinton and the United Kingdom to vote to stay part of the European Union. Yet, just suppose the punters are wrong? Just suppose that the polls are right and the UK does vote to Leave. Firstly this would trigger an immediate resignation from David Cameron. His luck would have run out. The Prime Minister himself suggests that his successor is most likely to be a "leaver", "that is where the heart of the Conservative party beats". Despite ...
Police have been asked to investigate claims letters sent in David Cameron's name led to a breach of election law. The former Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders has demanded Devon and Cornwall Police take action. He said the general election mailshots last year meant the Conservatives had broken local spending limits. A Conservative Party spokesman said they did not fall under constituency spending restrictions because they did not name the party's local candidate. The letters repeatedly referred to Torbay, telling voters how important it was for them to back the Tories in that constituency. One concluded: "The only way you ...
The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above 'Bill Esterson declined the opportunity to comment' says the Echo. I wonder why? Bill's not exactly known for being shy about appearing in the press.
Last week, I was called by a journalist who was looking to write a piece attacking local Liberal Democrat councillors in part of my region. He wanted to have a go at them for pledging to donate 10% of their pay to their local party to support campaigning on important local issues. In some areas this practise is called "tithing". Part of the call went something like this: "I understand you are a member of the Liberal Democrats' Federal Executive and you were the candidate to take over from Sharon Bowles as MEP?" "Yes that's right. Sharon was an excellent ...
I have just finished reading 'Against the Grain' by former Lib Dem MP and Government Minister in the Coalition Government Norman Baker. [IMG: IMG] It's an excellent read, no matter what your political views may be, even though Norman is probably a little too left wing for Tories and indeed the majority of Labour supporters. Norman clearly is independent of mind and action as well as having strong radical, liberal and environmental convictions. He is the very kind of MP I would want for my own Member of Parliament. Indeed, there is a strong argument to say that all MP's ...
Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of attending a great drop-in event by the Dundee Celebrate Age Network to celebrate many of the activities for older people that take place across the city. The event took place at the Central Baptist Church in Ward Road. The guest speaker was Iain Flett, the City Archivist who did a presentation on "Glimpses of Old Dundee from the Archives" and there were many other presentations including Marjory Moore talking about the activities of the West End Curling Club. The event was really well attended and lunch included a taste of Dundee's meals on ...
