Lovely colour footage of the Cambridge to St Ives branch taken in 1968 - click on the picture above to watch it on the BFI site. The closure notices were already up, but passenger services survived for another two years. There was a persistent campaign to reopen it after that, but today the trackbed forms part of the Cambridge guided busway.
Amazing new pictures of Eastham Bridge collapse - luckily nobody was hurthttps://t.co/3YEmDqb09G pic.twitter.com/V2TSl451Bi— Ludlow Advertiser (@ludlowtenbury) May 24, 2016There have been remarkable pictures from Worcestershire, where Eastham Bridge has collapsed. It crosses (or crossed) the River Teme a few miles downstream from Tenbury Wells. The bridge was a Grade II listed building and was built in 1793. It was a toll bridge until 1907, when it was bought by the county council. More pictures on the Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser site.
The London Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDA) are now a well established step improvement in how charged people are dealt with. A welcome improvement in the courts approach to children in care cases. Southwark has been part of the scheme for over 2 years now. During that time there has been 18 cases, involving 24 children through the FDA court. The impact that we are seeing through this court process is that fewer children are remaining in care and children are more likely to remain with a birth parent or an extended family member. The FDA court has been ...
The fact is that the Brexit camp is fighting an dreadful campaign. The fish rots from the head, and leadership is the first problem that the Brexiteers face. Farage and Johnson posture, but do not lead. Meanwhile Michael Gove has made his case and quietly returned to government. Only IDS continues his angry way, irritating his Conservative colleagues, but not really landing a blow. In the engine room, controversial but not competent figures such as Arron Banks or Dominic Cummings have a set a hostile and provocative tone which has even alienated their own supporters. The campaign is divided- unable ...
Tue 24th
19:31
Ludlow Library and council customer service opening hours to be cut - we are entering dangerous terr...
Shropshire Council has announced that it plans to cut the opening hours for Ludlow Library. It will shortly launch a consultation on the plans. This was due to start yesterday but has been delayed. I'll provide a link to the consultation as soon as I have it. If the cuts go through, it is expected... Continue reading Ludlow Library and council customer service opening hours to be cut - we are entering dangerous territory →
Watch the latest video from the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign: Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, became the latest in a host of world leaders who say we're stronger in Europe. 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: Join the INtogether campaign] In a month's time the nation will be going to the polls to determine whether or not we stay in the EU. This is a historic event for us all, and many of us will be campaigning hard to secure a future where we are still part of the EU. We all want to do [...]
I was interviewed last Thursday for the BBC Politics Show, North East edition, about Gateshead Labour Council's decision to opt out of devolution proposals for the North East. The programme was broadcast on Sunday. You can see it on this link. The devolution issue starts about 41 minutes into the programme.
The other day, a very senior German Minister said to me, "Whenever I go into a European Union meeting with my British colleagues, their very first question is: 'Excuse me, please tell me the way to the exit?'". They are spending so much energy trying to get out that they spend none building the alliances to try to win the things that we want. Canning and Castlereagh would be spinning in their graves. The truth of it is that there are things we can win in the European Union, but we will not win them by removing ourselves from it. ...
Wednesday, 18 May 2016 The beginning of my Mayoral year Daughter Katie and grandchildren Sarah and Lily join me in the Mayor's parlour after the ceremony Last night I was installed as Mayor of Sefton at a meeting of the council held in Southport town hall. I am going to use a blog to record all my comings and goings as mayor which can be found at : http://themayoralblog.blogspot.co.uk/ and so the Birkdale FOCUS will not have any more postings from me for a while. At a reception held afterwards in The Atkinson I had the chance to thank my ...
[IMG: drugs] We are the party at the forefront of drug reform policy. There are and have been smaller, single-issue parties that have been campaigning for the legalisation of cannabis for years, but we are the only major party to bring the debate on to the political mainstage. There are different arguments for the cases of decriminalisation or legalisation - though the two main arguments are almost always centred round healthcare. The first is: with decriminalisation, we can treat addiction like an illness instead of a crime - a noble idea, and one that I think we can all agree ...
I recently picked up an old publicity map of Merseyside's local railway network published in 1977 at a time when it was being substantially redeveloped as an underground railway within Liverpool City Centre. [IMG: Merseyrail Network] Click on the map to enlarge it You can see from the main map that the electrified services only reached Rock Ferry back then on one of the Wirral Lines (in Green). Extensions were subsequently constructed to both Chester and Ellsemere Port in later years. An additional station also appeared along this line at Bromborough Rake and a further one at Overpool on the ...
Meols Ward Lib Dem Councillors John Dodd, Nigel Ashton and Jo Barton are holding their next advice centre in Churchtownn We will be at BoxTree Kitchen for Queenscourt café, Manor Road/Cambridge Road, roundabout, from 10:30 to 11.30am on Thursday 26th May, 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 to 12:00.
[IMG: David Rendel at Anti-Iraq war demo 15th Feb 2003 Some rights reserved by Paul Walter] A half page obituary of David Rendel appears in the Telegraph today. You can read it here. * Newshound: bringing you the best Lib Dem commentary published in print or online.
A Liberal Britain has to be three things It has be free, is has to be tolerant, and it has to be fair. But those are dangerous words. Not because people disagree openly with them, but precisely because hardly anybody does. They are safe happy fluffy words that everyone nods along to, but then take to mean many different things and can use to justify more or less anything. So what do I mean by them and what do they look like? Freedom clearly must include a lack of state interference in area where the state has no business, like ...
When I came to Blyth in 1983 I was posted to the Custom House, on Ridley Street. Although no longer in use as a Custom House, the building is broadly recognisable. The building dates from 1890, and superseded the previous building on Sea View. The old building, and indeed the whole road , has long disappeared, but I recently came across the attached photograph which shows them both. The older one was occupied by a firm of ships' agents, J Hanns & Co, who were operating from Maritime Buildings ( also long gone ) when I worked here.
Instagram Monday morning #currentlyinked #ink #inkyfingers #fountainpen #fpgeeks Next Monday this will... How did we get pension calculations so wrong? | Money | The Guardian Britain has an ethnic problem: the English - The Globe and Mail Excellent, on point article How to speak sci-fi God, I knew all of these without reading the description *pride and shame all mixed up in one* The Death Clock - When Am I Going To Die? Holy crap! This website has been going in one form or another since the mid nineties! I remember checking it at uni! So apparently I'm going to ...
"Is the Basic Income an idea whose time has come?" asked Caron, back in February and it seems now that two-thirds of the British public agree. The advantages seem to speak for themselves: a universal cash payment from the government, means that no one needs to starve, no one is trapped in a bad work situation, and perhaps most important from a Liberal point of view, puts the choices in the hands of the recipient not leaving them beholden to the generosity of the government. And, with trial schemes being set up in the Netherlands, Canada, and Finland, and a ...
On the Yes to AV campaign, we spent a massive amount of time firefighting against a small but vocal section of our own support. People who wanted to burn their MP in effigy, or have a rally in the centre of their town while likening First Past the Post to the horrors of Nazi Germany; we spent so much time battling against these people that it sapped all the strength we should have been using in fighting the real enemy. Vote Leave face an even worse situation: their fruitcakes are organised into an actual, alternative organisation, and a generously funded ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat business manager Mike Rumbles yesterday said MSPs should get out of Holyrood and onto the campaign trail in the run up to the EU referendum. Mr Rumbles' intervention came ahead of a meeting of the Scottish Parliament Business Bureau at which the Scottish Liberal Democrats will request that parliamentary business is cleared for the week running up to [...]
Sexuality researcher Fritz Klein died ten years ago today. Fritz on the cover of BCN magazine Of all the 'names' in sexuality theory his is probably the second best known to bisexual people and those with a wider interest in research around bisexuality. Back in the late 70s, as I learned the story, he wanted to do some research and include sexual orientation as one of the variables measured. Yet when he went to look for suitable metrics, the only one on offer was that compiled by Alfred Kinsey back in the late 1940s: the "Kinsey Scale" that grades sexual ...
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP yesterday repeated his calls for the SNP to scrap their plans to slash Air Passenger Duty (APD) as the first of the new powers transferred under the Scotland Act 2016 were passed to Holyrood. Mr Rennie has warned the SNP that cutting APD would lead to increases in [...]
With the current road resurfacing works on Perth Road taking place between Sinderins and West Park Road, a number of constituents have asked me when other parts of Perth Road (much of which is in poor condition) will be resurfaced. The council's Roads Maintenance Partnership has updated me as follows : "Works were originally programmed for 20 June 2016 commencement to resurface the carriageway in the Nethergate between Marketgait and South Tay Street. However we have delayed these works until Scottish Water have confirmed completion of their works, and allowing time for any initial settlement of their reinstatements, we therefore ...
Tue 24th
08:29
Prominent Leave campaigner brands her own side's literature as "deliberately misleading"
As both sides on the EU referendum debate seek to rubbish the other's facts and figures it is worth noting this article in the Independent in which a senior MP and one of the most prominent health experts backing Brexit, brands Vote Leave campaign's NHS leaflets as "deliberately misleading". The paper reports that Dr Sarah Wollaston, a former GP and now chair of the House of Commons Health Select Committee, said that the Leave campaign should "stop treating the public like fools" by claiming that Brexit would free-up £350m a week to spend on the NHS: While attacking "outlandish claims" ...
The next meeting of the English Council will be debating proposed changes to the Liberal Democrat selection rules for Westminster general elections and for European Parliament selections. For Westminster, the proposals from the English Candidates Committee would implement in England changes that follow from the passage of the diversity motion at the party's York federal spring conference (although the motion for English Council does not cover all parts of the York motion, such as the amendment added in about local government). As with the motion passed after amendment in York, the steps which these rule changes implement are limited by ...
A modern-day ghost sign on the old Royal Mail building by Leicester station.
John Curtice on the BBC website analyses polling that shows Britain is a "divided nation" on the referendum – with age and occupational background, ethnicity and to a lesser extent gender strongly indicating which way a person in likely to vote in the referendum. The Leave campaign's lie that Turkey is going to join the EU anytime soon has been much ventilated in the last few days. A Minister even asserted the UK has no veto on a new member joining. The Prime Minister was robust in saying this is not true. The BBC have more detail. Academic study has ...
28 years ago today, Section 28 became law. It was not the first thing to make me pay attention to politics, but in the end it would be the biggest motivator in going from armchair to activism. One of the joys of life today is that when you talk to young people, even politically informed queer young people, you have to explain what it was. Often this is followed by some incredulity that people thought such a thing was OK, let alone a popular vote-winner, just a few years ago. Yet David Cameron got elected into parliament through a campaign ...
Okay, so do you remember the Mirror of Erised? Yes, that thing from Harry Potter which shows a reflection of what you want most in the world. Well, I'm going to use it as part of a protracted allegory about euroscepticism. No, seriously. Bear with me. I know many people tempted by, or sold on, [...]
