No doubt we shall soon hear Lord Bonkers' thoughts on how the Liberal Democrats can revive their electoral fortunes. Meanwhile... Piracy on Rutland Water I recently heard a Conservative politician who has been Members of the European Parliament since they were 14 say that Brexit will make us a "buccaneering" nation again. Well, we remember those days hereabouts and dark they were indeed. Merchant vessels carrying Stilton and pork pies out of Oakham across Rutland Water were set upon by pirates, who stole their cargo, made the crew walk the plank and went "Arrr!" in a most annoying fashion. (I ...
There are two Batposts up — a new one on Patreon for the typical red-blooded American teenagers, and an older one on Mindless Ones for the fine finny freeloading fiends. (I'm hoping to have a post on the Monkees up ... Continue reading →
So I recently changed jobs after nearly 7 years working in Halifax. The commute from Bradford to Halifax was generally very easy. Buses didn't tend to get packed out apart from one bus quite close to most people's 9am work deadline. My only issue was despite only being 7 miles away from Halifax we had ... Continue reading The Daily Commute! →
Blog Categories: Economics Political Theory Vote: -1 vote + Vote up! - Vote down! The thread that runs right through this paper requires readers to understand what we mean when we talk about rent. No doubt many people, if they think about "rent", think of, predominantly, what people without a home of their own pay to live in someone else's spare property, or, more broadly, a fee one pays to hire someone else's capital goods. And, while this is probably the most common understanding of "rent", it doesn't really reflect what economists think of as "rent". Since at least the ...
We've seen Matlock Riverside and Rowsley South. This is Darley Dale, the intermediate station on Peak Rail. You read all about its history on Disused Stations, while the Peak Rail site says: Our waiting room facilities include a selection of DVDs, railway books and books for pre-school children for your enjoyment. Adjacent to this is our small museum, which houses an exhibition depicting the history of the former Midland line between Matlock and Rowsley. A selection of nostalgic old photographs, artefacts, posters, items of memorabilia and various historic documents taken from the extensive archive collection of the Peak Railway Association ...
Sun 11th
20:39
The Lib Dems should trumpet their opposition to a third runway at Heathrow, not talk about process i...
Embed from Getty Images When the government plan to put the building of a third runway at Heathrow to parliament was revealed after someone photographed it on the tube, John McDonnell appeared on Channel 4 News. Though the shadow chancellor is a longstanding opponent of the idea, in that interview he spent most of his time rubbishing the idea that collective cabinet responsibility could be suspended for the Commons vote. Similarly, Tim Farron's statement on the subject began: The suggestion that there might be a free vote on Heathrow is farcical - this is a huge decision and the Conservative ...
Sun 11th
20:00
Conference Countdown 2016: Caron's guide to the craziness of Conference - updated for Brighton 2016
[IMG: Credit: Freefoto.com] Credit: Freefoto.com Federal Conference is probably the best fun that you will ever have in your life. You will thoroughly enjoy every exhausting moment. If you're new, it can be a bit overwhelming until you get used to the sensory overload. I had a long break from going to them and when I returned, in 2011, I spent the first day wandering round in a state of wide-eyed amazement, like a child in a toy shop. So, with that in mind, I thought I'd throw together a fairly random list of tips and hints for getting the ...
Twitter RT @ReverentMac_: #lastnightoftheproms the typo is my favourite thing this week. Brexit camp abandons £350m-a-week NHS funding pledge | Politics | The Guardian RT @GroomB: Brexit camp retrospectively tries to drop £350m-a-week NHS funding pledge. Imagine Leave had lost the EU referendum. Would you have been a cry-baby? RT @MichaelPDeacon: If Leave campaigners had lost the referendum, would they have been "cry-babies"? Report: the more Lib Dems spent on a seat, the more votes they lost | openDemocracy RT @openDemocracyUK: Don't miss our exclusive & extraordinary report on Lib Dem spending in last year's elections: Cockblocking Rapists Is A ...
'We're the Only Plane in the Sky' 9/11 as seen from Air Force One. (tags: uspolitics waronterror )
My dissertation is officially finished. Yay! Well, almost: I will proof read it again tomorrow before submitting all 9,000 lovingly crafted words. But, done. Which brings me to the end of my MSc, too. Here it is in all of its front cover glory. My advice to future students is simple. No matter how tempting it seems, if you're going ... The post 10,000 steps a day – day 11 – dissertation done! appeared first on ten pence piece.
"Open, tolerant and united." It's the phrase you will hear in many Liberal Democrats speeches and press comments at the moment. It seems to be taking the place of "Stronger Economy, Fairer Society." But is it what we should be saying right now? It's not a bad thing. You wouldn't have found anyone saying that they actively wanted a weak economy and an unfair society, but here is evidence everywhere that some people want us to be isolated, intolerant and divided. The referendum result gave a massive boost to those malevolent forces who thrive on fear and hatred and brought ...
Second paragraph of third story ("The Gift of Touch", by Chinelo Onwualu): Bringing passengers on board always set him on edge; they had a tendency to poke about in places they didn't belong. But running a haulage freighter doesn't pay much when there isn't much to haul. Now that the technology for instant matter transportation had improved movement between the five planets of the star system, work was becoming rarer. Bruno needed the money and he had to know that his ship, The Lady's Gift, was in perfect shape. I got this at the end of last year, when I ...
Welcome to the latest in my series of tips and advice for Liberal Democrat members, which appear first in the email bulletin run by London Region for party members. 10 ways to make your local party AGM better It may feel like summer is still hanging on, but already it is nearly time for the local party AGM season. Which also means it is time for planning how to make the local party AGM good rather than the minimalistic boring routine of minutes, agendas and a slightly draughty room selected mainly for its cheapness. The use of an acronym in ...
[IMG: 7 best] Many thanks to the 14,700 visitors who dropped by Lib Dem Voice this week. Here's our 7 most-read posts... Lib Dems GAIN council seat from Labour in Sheffield (24 comments) by Caron Lindsay A bizarre, but welcome, loophole for students in the new BBC iPlayer licence rules (15 comments) by Paul Walter Clegg in the Guardian: "Why on earth would you not want to try and do s**t?" (151 comments) by Caron Lindsay Tim Farron MP writes...A Liberal Democrat plan for Britain in Europe (72 comments) by Caron Lindsay Tim Farron to launch Lib Dem plan for ...
On 11 September 2001 I was at the Savile Club having lunch when the head waiter called me into the kitchen to look at the TV. I thought I was seeing a disaster movie but soon the penny dropped that this was live news footage from New York. The way the twin towers crumbled and [...]
This week, Kirsty Williams, the Liberal Democrat Welsh Education Secretary, made a speech at Cardiff University about the challenges facing the sector caused by Brexit. She called on universities to strengthen their links to the community at this very difficult time. Here is her speech in full. Prynhawn da pawb. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you Colin, and many thanks to colleagues here at Cardiff University for hosting this event today. It's great to be here in the Postgraduate Teaching Centre, where professionals from industry and masters students mix and study in the same great location. It is a real state-of ...
This has been played several times on BBC 6 Music recently. I like the echo of John Cooper Clark and the total commitment of the performance. More about Mik Artistik on his website.
Recently I was out with some Bishop's Stortford Liberal Democrats, gathering signatures on a petition for citizens of other EU nations currently in the UK to be allowed to remain in the UK. In a few hours we gathered just over 250 signatures on a not-that-busy street. Some were delighted to sign. Some were relieved that we were not taking the opposite position. Some said their businesses would struggle without people from other parts of the EU. More worrying was the small minority who disagreed, loudly wanting foreigners to "go home". A prize for confusion goes to the person who ...
Over the Summer Emma Nicholson was one of two Liberal Democrat peers who resigned the party's whip. Many readers will be sad to see the news today that she has rejoined the Conservative Party, and will be surprised by her reasons, reported in the Guardian: Her education speech last week showed she leads a party with a real commitment to delivering for the next generation and building a country that works for everyone. "We in the Conservative party have a great history of diversity, optimism in our people's creativity and success. "My greatest strengths are the Conservative strengths and I ...
"Definitely...I'm unashamedly a socialist. I'm unashamedly an idealist." – Owen Smith, summer of 2016 If Labour is indeed unable to pull itself out of its current woes and what we are witnessing now are its death throes, many historians will look back with confusion on why the Labour right chose as its potential saviour a little known Welsh former lobbyist who decided to try and run to the left of Jeremy Corbyn. Looked at from where we are now, less than two weeks from the result, it feels like a massive, epoch defining error. Given the attempt to get rid ...
In the USA Hillary Clinton has got into trouble for characterising the supporters of Donald Trump as 'deplorables'. NBC reports that she told an LGBT gala fundraiser that many of the GOP candidate's voters were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it." This sort of lazy (and offensive) labelling of one's opponents plays to the voraciousness of the 24/7 media coverage of politics. The media want soundbites rather than analysis and where they offer analysis it is often superficial. Constant opinion polls play into this agenda, they feed the media beast, reduce everything to slogans and turn snapshots of ...
Here's what two research papers from the EPOP 2016 conference say about the electoral impact of candidates being local.
Cllr Claire Young in Westerleigh In 2015, the Frome Vale Area Forum supported an investigation into further traffic calming measures in Westerleigh after complaints from residents about some of the measures implemented so far. These include concerns from local cyclists about the safety of the pinch points. Unfortunately the final outcome of the investigation has been delayed by the departure of the officer who was handling it. Local councillor Claire Young has been talking to officers to get things back on track and on Wednesday met the officer now working on the investigation and a senior manager from Street Care ...
Issue 380 of Liberator is on its way to subscribers, and the magazine can be bought from our stall at the Brighton conference. It's only £25 a year. This issue's free sample online content is from former MP David Howarth on how to use the 48% as the basis for building a core vote, and from Lord Trevor Smith on how politics must respond to the effects of 'robber barons and falling incomes'. Elsewhere the issue has: Norman Baker on what it was like to work with Theresa May in government. An analysis by Seth Thevoz of how the Liberal ...
When, as the newly appointed Prime Minister, Theresa May appointed Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and David Davis to lead on Brexit, there were those who suspected that this was a cunning ploy to deal with an inevitably unworkable outcome to the Referendum. And, perhaps, this will turn out to be correct one day. Frankly, I doubt it - one of the modern traits in British politics is the urge to selectively use information to support your preferred outcome regardless of the weight of evidence, and I don't think that Theresa May thinks like that. Regardless of how you voted on ...
Prior to its decant for the Harris Academy rebuild, the school was used for many years as a polling station, serving a large part of the western part of the West End Ward. During the decant, the polling station moved across the road to the West Park Centre (the modern conference centre, not the main, older West Park mansion). I have been in contact with council officers in the past few months as the new school building reached completion about the long-term polling station arrangements. I have now been advised by the City Council as follows - a sensible decision ...
The weather wasn't particularly pleasant yesterday, so going to see the RSC's King Lear in Stratford was excellent scheduling. Spoiler – everyone dies by the end of the play. There were some good performances from David Troughton as Gloucester, Paapa Essiedu as Edmund and Oliver Johnstone as Edgar, but otherwise the production was somewhat disappointing. We also went for an ... The post 10,000 steps a day – day 10 – King Lear appeared first on ten pence piece.
Pleased to see the new shelter being erected last Friday next to the site of the old and now demolished Maghull Library, although what was wrong with the old one? [IMG: New bus shelter L'pool Rd Nth 09 16] The future of the site (behind the shelter), which also includes the land that the former Stafford Moreton Youth Centre sat on as well, is still unknown since Netto went belly up before a brick was even laid for its new Maghull store.
