"The Lib Dems will fight the next election on a clear and unequivocal promise to restore Britain's prosperity and role in the world, with the United Kingdom in the European Union, not outside it." - Tim Farron
This is the 12th and final audio in this series. I have a feeling that, unlike the rest of them, it has appeared on this blog before. Il Rondo, the brick building to the left in the still above, was Leicester's most vital pop venue in the 1960s. Oh to have been there! Today it is a chain Italian restaurant.
Tim Farron has sent this message to members this evening: Liberal Democrats have always believed that Britain should be outward facing, collaborating with other countries to tackle global challenges. Our membership of the European Union allows us to do that. Britain has now voted to leave. The margin of victory was small and risks dividing our country. We must respect the outcome of the referendum in how we talk about moving forward. We also have to understand that for many people this was not just a vote about Europe. It was also a howl of anger at politicians and institutions ...
We left The Strawberry Tea in time to get to another Afternoon Tea in Crosby. This one hosted by my old friend Anthony Hill and the Crosby Mayor's Charity Committee. There were more cakes, sumptuous cakes as well as cream scones, sandwiches and tea made in a china pot and poured into china cups. Anthony with volunteers from his committee Lovely to meet this lady who is 99 yrs old. She had a great time and is clearly a fan of Sid's Sid with his ukuleles. He does a fine rendition of George Formby I had delightful company of Linda ...
Good to be in Crosby this afternoon. I attended Age Concern's Strawberry Afternoon Tea. I bought some excellent cakes, home made jam (rhubarb and ginger like my mother used to make) and won some body butter (what ever that is) on the tombola. I also picked up some very fine hanging baskets, two for work and one to adorn the back garden for daughter Elspeth's 21 birthday party. It was an excellent event and good to see many people supporting it.
IOnly a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walkWith an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk. IIOnly thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch-grass;Yet this will go onward the same Though Dynasties pass. IIIYonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by:War's annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.
It seems fair to suggest that we've just experienced one of the most depressing and disturbing campaigns in our nation's history. Ironically, the result is one of the least of my concerns in that sense, grim though it is if you're a liberal, internationalist sort of person. No, with a 52-48 split, you can at least hold on to the possibility of 'buyer's remorse', although I personally wouldn't count on it. You can even entertain the hope that, when push comes to shove, either the European Union will panic and offer the United Kingdom concessions, or that the prime movers ...
Sat 25th
20:20
Is a Referendum democratic and when should I question the result? My personal rationale!
OK the UK has just had a referendum on the EU question should we belong ? My personal view is that we should, however, the electorate as a whole disagreed and voted to begin the process. It's safe to say i have never been a fan of the British electoral system, a long debated question designed for a two party system. Most of the democratic world has opted for a proportional representation system, it is however agreed that most of these systems are also flawed, there does not seem to be a consensus, and one must put that down also ...
The Guardian has the story on its web site – see link above This is a powerful piece indeed and well worth reading. My thanks to Roy Connell for spotting it. As an aside I heard Anna Soubry MP say on Channel 4 News tonight that both her Tory Party and Labour had in effect stoked up anti EU feelings over issues that had nothing to do with the EU. She even mentioned that the Libs had not done this. Her anger with Gove and Boris was very clear.
Current Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week) Peter & Max, by Bill Willingham The Mary-Sue Extrusion, by Dave Stone The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss Last books finished Loving the Alien, by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry Frankenstein Unbound, by Brian W. Aldiss Next books The Unwritten Vol. 6: Tommy Taylor and the War of Words, by Mike Carey Fanny Kemble and the Lovely land, by Constance Wright Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury, edited by Paul Cornell Books acquired in last week American Gridlock: The Sources, Character, and Impact of Political Polarization, by James A. Thurber
This morning England completed a 3-0 whitewash over Australia in the rugby union series. This is an extraordinary achievement. So much so that I cannot think of a parallel. Even the great British Lions sides of the early 1970s did not manage a whitewash (though they did play four-test series). I also like this front page from Australia's Sunday Mail.
I can't be the only person who is asking that question and I see that Alisdair Calder McGregor was posing it yesterday. However, a lot of the responses seem to miss the point. We have not left the EU. What a small majority of the country has voted for is for us to withdraw. That can only be done by triggering Article 50 and beginning discussions on the terms of exit (as even Leave recognises). Only one country has ever left the EU - Greenland. Their Article 50 negotiations took 3 years and they only really had to discuss fish. ...
The referendum campaign has reminded or taught us many things about the relationship between us and the public. I am deliberately writing this before the result. There are matters that need a good hard examination. Among them are these: 1.Since tuition fees, we have been all too aware of people's lack of trust in us; this is now the view held by even more people about all politicians. So when Sadiq Khan rightly points out the untruths in a leaflet, someone who was chosen as an undecided simply said on camera that he is trained to lie. 2.Large numbers of ...
This vote has been a collective howl of frustration – at the political class, at big business, at a global elite. These were Tim Farron's words in his outstanding speech following the results of the EU referendum. It raises a question this party must answer - is this party simply part of that political class and global elite that the voters continue so clearly to reject? Are we, like other mainstream political parties, set in our ways, disconnected from the public whose trust the mainstream has lost, stuck in a mindset and language that is hopelessly outdated, and with no ...
It appears Farron took the referendum result rather more badly than Corbyn (via @thhamilton) did. pic.twitter.com/ctcl0Pn0FK — James Chalmers (@ProfChalmers) June 25, 2016 Here is what Tim Farron said in full: I am devastated and I am angry. Today we wake to a deeply divided country. Nigel Farage's vision for Britain has won this vote, but it is not a vision I share. Young people voted to remain by a considerable margin, but were out voted. They had a clear ambition for their future, yet it has been taken from them. Even though the result was close, there is no ...
This is not a great day, the referendum is over. Remain lost. We can put away our posters, our hyperbole and our support for George, Dave and Jeremy. There is work to be done. Perhaps more clear than a desire to leave the European Union. The result and accompanying commentary illuminates the stark divisions in our society. This was not just a no to the EU, its rules, and its immigration policy, it was a slap in the face of the political establishment. Yet the decision will not be an easy one to reverse, if possible at all. The recurring ...
What happens now? Initial reactions in London and Brussels have been stark, along the lines of 'Out means Out'. Will they change with more considered reflection? As the foreign ministers gather in Berlin today and the leaders of Germany, France and Italy meet on Monday to prepare Tuesday's European Council ('summit') meeting, economic interests may have started to impinge on political considerations. It seems most likely, however, that when David Cameron arrives in Brussels on Tuesday he will find his 27 counterparts almost all singing from the same (German-language) hymn sheet. In a statement Friday by the Presidents of the ...
It is becoming painfully clear just a day after the result of the EU referendum where the UK is heading politically. David Cameron's decision to resign – albeit in a delayed and orderly manner – has confirmed my worst fears. Although I approve of the decision in itself, and could see no appropriate way for [...]
Day Two of post-Brexit Britain and things are panning out pretty much as predicted. The value of the pound has plunged, falling more than 8% against the dollar and 6% against the euro, possibly leading to higher petrol prices. Holiday makers are struggling to exchange currency abroad, Scotland is considering a second Independence referendum and there are calls for a vote in Northern Ireland on whether they should also leave and merge with the Republic. Wall Street and the FTSE 100 both fell sharply on Friday in a wild day of trading after the UK voted for Brexit whilst the ...
For those who are complaining about people being still unhappy at the result of the referendum. The emergence of rampant anti-intellectualism probably worries me more deeply than anything else, when it comes down to it. There's always a level of it in society, of course, but now many people have been persuaded that it's somehow a righteous and noble way to go about making important decisions. A population will swallow almost anything if it is persuaded to act purely on knee-jerk emotion instead of stopping to think, or listen to advice from experts, or look at the evidence. It's what ...
Given that Brexit is now certain the UK has a challenging negotiation. It was to be expected that the UK would not immediately give notice to the EU under Article 50. What the UK needs to do ideally is to negotiate the settlement in substance before giving notice. Time and delay is in the UK's interest as is obvious from the comments by the EU Commission. The challenges to negotiate is how
It may be a mistake, but in my idiosyncratic way, I tend to approach the present - and the future - through the past. So I feel the need to point out at this time, that in 1914 during the earliest days of the First World War, there arose within the British Left a movement called the 'Union of Democratic Control', one of whose prime movers was a Liberal Radical journalist called ED Morel. (He had already led a very interesting life, and went to have a short but even more interesting life subsequently, including both imprisonment and beating Winston ...
As I feared, the polls weren't wrong, but the bookies were. On a very narrow margin, the referendum in the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. In the face of a great shock, there is a tendency to exaggerate the scale of the crisis. There is after all an awful lot of ruin in a nation. Unfortunately the UK has been pressing its luck for sometime now. I could write screeds about the narrow education system, the growing lack of social mobility and the economic imbalances, but that must wait for another time. The point is that ...
An excellent dissection of political campaign ads work, starting with some lessons from Alfred Hitchcock.
I woke this morning to discover that it was not a nightmare nor a horror film. The country I thought I knew has voted to leave the European Union. It is not only the decision that leaves me in despair but the worst political campaign of my life. It can be summed up in the [...]
If I took one thing away from the referendum campaign, it would be that voters and activists are being ever-more turned off from politics (high turnout notwithstanding). People on the streets were reacting against the fearmongering, the negativity and the ad hominem attacks employed by many parties in the last few weeks and months. Back in 2015, we learned that campaigns based on adding 'brains' or 'hearts' to other parties' manifestos just don't work. My view? We as Liberal Democrats need to energise ourselves and our communities with a positive, optimistic and internationalist message. And we need to be doing ...
Liberals are often spoken of as being nice people, indeed I have had it said to me numerous times but this Liberal does not feel nice at present indeed he fancies being offensive! The EU 'out' vote was probably the greatest ever act of selfish behaviour in living memory by the older generations of UK voters. It was often said during the campaign that older folk would not have to live with the consequences of Brexit so those older generations, in general, said that's fine with us – bugger the young folk, we don't care! It you don't believe me ...
From Dundee City Council :Whether you have a garden, window box, community space or a landing, there's a category for you to enter in the Garden, Allotment and Best Kept Close Competitions. They are a great way to get involved in your community and to encourage others, including schools, citizens and businesses, to take pride and interest in the city. The annual Garden and Allotment competitions helped contribute towards Dundee being invited to represent Scotland in the RHS Britain in Bloom 2015 final. We were delighted that Dundee achieved a Silver Gilt Award and was overall winner in the City ...
In the wake of Brexit and Cameron's resignation as prime minister, there have been calls from inside of the Labour Party, particularly the PLP, to challenge Corbyn's leadership. It is worth trying to look at this as rationally as possible. In many ways, blaming Corbyn for Brexit is unfair. It wasn't his idea to have the referendum (a la Cameron) and while his interventions on the subject were too little, too late, he wasn't as bad as a lot of people claim he was on the Remain trail. His refusal to share a platform with Cameron was petty, sure, but ...
Yesterday afternoon, I was somewhat nervous to receive notification that Tim Farron was going to make a "major speech". Straight after an election, when you are still suffering from advanced post-election bone tiredness, is no time to be suddenly deciding to make a "major speech". But it was a good speech and I applaud Tim's display of righteous anger on behalf of the young and those who are boiling with rage – those who are now shouting: "we are better than this". Also yesterday afternoon, I received an email from the party calling the referendum campaign "unbearable and unacceptable". Now ...
In the previous post I have argued that what we need to do to repair our democracy is to reform the electoral system. That will be no surprise, coming from a convinced Liberal/Liberal Democrat of fifty years' standing. Whilst we scratch our heads to wonder why the majority of the electorate has chosen to ignore the advice of the overwhelming bulk of the establishment, I think our electoral system gives part of the explanation, for two reasons. First, for the overwhelming majority of us, a referendum is the one opportunity we have to make our votes count. I have voted ...
EU Referendum Reaction from APCO's Brussels Office My colleague @ChairmanYaffle and I reflect. (tags: eu ukpolitics ) Will parliament try to foil Brexit? Matthew Parris thinks so. (tags: eu ukpolitics ) Americans Confused By System Of Government In Which Leader Would Resign After Making Terrible Decision Ho ho. (tags: Uspolitics ukpolitics ) How Brexit should be done The EU has the upper hand. (tags: eu ukpolitics brexit ) Britain's Democratic Failure by Kenneth Rogoff Wider argument against referendums. Sensible. (tags: ukpolitics voting ) How American Politics Became So Ineffective - The Atlantic "Trump didn't cause the chaos. The chaos caused ...
This morning Nigel Farage declared the 24th June our Independence Day. But what does that mean? All though the campaign and indeed for the last 25 years against rising Euroscepticism I have said we need to be in the EU not outside it Now that we have stepped outside it may be sometime before some realise what is missing so here is some things that I have been pondering today. 1. Our EU deal won't be gold standard. The United Kingdom are about to become the first nation to use the Lisbon Treaty to walk away from the EU. Do ...
