I was contacted recently by a friend and constituent in Marley Hill to ask for advice on taking over the running of the tennis courts in the village. I went up last night, after finishing a meeting at Gateshead Civic Centre about appointing a new council chief exec. The courts in question have largely been ignored by the council over the years, even when money was available for the council to
Vicki Pipe attempts to track down the 'Parliamentary train' that runs once a day (weekdays only) at 8.15pm from Newhaven Marine to Lewes. Except that Newhaven Marine station is closed, so you can't get on it. We had a line like that in the East Midlands. The branch from Derby to Sinfin Central reopened in 1976 but had its passengers trains removed in 1993. Latterly there had been just one early-morning working each day. After that, if you presented yourself at Derby station at the right ime and demanded to be taken to Sinfin North or Sinfin Central, you would ...
Yesterday, the Chair of West End Community Council, Peter Menzies, and I met with senior Police Scotland representatives to hand in a petition from 300 West End residents to make the case to retain Ryehill Police Station at the Pennycook Lane/Perth Road junction. We met with two senior police officers, Superintendent Andrew Todd and Chief Inspector Gary Ogilvie, and stressed that the community is strongly of the view that the Ryehill Police Office is a crucial resource in the West End and closing it would be highly detrimental. Peter and I made the point to Police Scotland that a possible ...
Current Kings of the North, by Cecelia Holland Last books finished Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in honour of Jack Vance, eds. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois SPQR, by Mary Beard Valley of the Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann Next books AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers, ed. Nnedi Okorafor Angels & Visitations: A Miscellany, by Neil Gaiman Tolstoy, by Henri Troyat
Here's a handy interview from last year which explains the case for Crossrail 2 - and in particular how much of the money can be raised to pay for it via the London property market.
Embed from Getty Images It's not me saying that: it's Bagehot in The Economist. You can add his name to the list of journalists saying encouraging things about the Liberal Democrats after our result in Witney. Stephen Bush and Chris Deerin are already on it. Bagehot writes While the Lib Dems have been doing well in council by-elections in such places in recent months, this was the first parliamentary test. Their campaign focused heavily on Brexit. Residents were urged to reject Mrs May's nativist overtures at her party's conference and to send the government a message about the need to ...
There has been quite a hullabaloo over parking in Ludlow of late. More than 200 fines have been issued after six in the evening during the last few months. There is no doubt that we have problems with parking in the town centre that we need to address. Parking on pavements and in disabled bays... Continue reading Want a parking ticket? I know the perfect place for you to park in Ludlow →
Following the encouraging performance by and the Liberal Democrats in Witney, I had something at the back of my mind. Hadn't some Tory MP or other said on Twitter that we would do well to hold our deposit? A bit of searching and I was able to retweet the above - with the words "Look what I've found..." preceding it. Guess what happened next? I had not heard of Mr Knight before, but - despite his best efforts - I shall keep an eye on the member for Solihull in future.
Tonight saw canal barge Kennet and its flotilla arrive in Sefton Borough to moor at Mersey Motor Boat Club in Pilling Lane, Lydiate. It's on a voyage from Leeds to Liverpool to commemorate the full opening of the Leeds Liverpool Canal 200 years ago. My previous recent postings refer. [IMG: Kennet arrives at Mersey Motor Boat Club , Lydiate r] Tomorrow at 7.30am it will set sail on the last leg of its journey into Liverpool. Fly Boat Ribble was also in the flotilla [IMG: Fly Boat Ribble was part of the foltilla r]
[IMG: Clarkey Cat Carmichael onesie] Adam Clarke, the Scottish Party's rugby playing Director of Communications left this week. We will miss him. Normally when you leave, you get a present and lots of kind words are said about you. That all happened with Adam, but his colleagues went one step further. They gave the Herald newspaper the rather fetching photograph of Adam in his going away present from his previous job, researcher for Alistair Carmichael. You can only hope that the Orkney and Shetland MP gave him something more than a onesie with his face on it. Let's hope it ...
The huge swing and proportion of our vote in the Witney by-election was outstanding and not to be underestimated. Congratulations to Liz and her team and all others who helped. However... When the dust settles and parliament next meets it won't be one extra Libdem taking a seat. Unfortunately records will show that a Tory [...]
Sat 22nd
12:04
Canada-EU non-deal - dramatic collapse of the shining example for a post-Brexit future held up by th...
Embed from Getty Images Business Insider UK reports: Britain's hopes of striking a post-Brexit free-trade deal with the European Union might have just been destroyed by a single regional government in Belgium. This came after Wallonia, part of Belgium, effectively voted to veto the Candaian-EU trade deal. Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Minister of International Trade, said in an official statement that the Canadian government was "disappointed" and that striking a deal would be "impossible". "Canada has worked, and I personally have worked very hard, but it is now evident to me, that the European Union is incapable of reaching an agreement ...
If you're trying to contact me for the next couple of days, you're probably best either phoning the landline, or going through Mat if it's text-based communication. - Samsung were supposed to collect my phone yesterday, so it got reset to factory settings and powered down. They didn't come. - My new phone has not arrived yet. - I am typing this on Mat's laptop because Tiny Laptop is broken, and has been for ages, but I never got round to fixing her because I was fine with my phone. - Alisdair's phone (my old Note 2, so 3 phones ...
J.K Rowling recently announced that there will be five new films based in the Harry Potter mythology. The first one, Fantastic Beasts and where to find them will be released in the UK on 18th November. I have seen some, although not many, claim she is simply doing this for the money and yes, unsurprisingly Jo will most likely make a massive amount of money off these films and associated merchandise. However, if you think her primary objective is to make money, then you have no idea who J.K Rowling is. Just for the basics, J. K Rowling was a ...
Email isn't new. It has been around for only one year less than me but is still only patchily used by local parties even though more than four in five voters use email.
I'm not a big fan of Lord Peter Hain's attempts at constitutional tinkering. It was his legislation that introduced the Legislative Competence Order, which crippled the Welsh Assembly's law-making ability in its third term. The LCO, as they came to be known, had previously only been tried before when an Imperial British Government had sought to keep the Irish happy. Hain was also responsible for restricting the ability of people to stand for both the Assembly list and a constituency at the same time, a breathtaking exercise in undermining individual rights and the sort of change I would have expected ...
Embed from Getty Images Who says? Chris Deerin, that's who: The Lib Dems, despite what many of us thought, are not necessarily done for. They have not kicked the bucket, run down the curtain or joined the bleedin' choir invisible. And for this they have Cameron and his disastrous referendum to thank. Clegg and co may justifiably view Brexit as a calamity, but as the old political truism has it, every crisis contains an opportunity. And as Alex Salmond is fond of saying, you must play the ball as it lies.And: Brexit also seems likely to serve as something of ...
It's hard to imagine these days that at one time walkers and cyclists were not welcome on the tow paths of the UK's canal network, even more so now when exactly the opposite is true and the Canal and River Trust actively encourages such activities. But just to prove how unwelcome walkers and cyclists were in previous times here is a photo of a Leeds Liverpool Canal cast iron sign, from 1911, which is on display at the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port:- [IMG: IMG_7790r] Click on the photo to enlarge it The photo is also amongst my Flickr ...
Sat 22nd
07:58
This was the problem with the EU referendum - and how that problem led us to where we are now
There's been a lot of talk about the nature of democracy of late in Britain. It has been shaped by the idea that to oppose the referendum result is inherently undemocratic – it's the will of the people, goddamnit, is heard a lot now, particularly from the Conservative side of the House. What it has made me consider is the nature of the British form of democracy and how it actually functions; as well as how the EU referendum was essentially a perversion of it that has led us all into a place where the entire unwritten constitution is in ...
Across Africa, there is a deepening commitment to the use of evidence by many governments and decision makers. Last month, 180 delegates from twenty African countries spent three days in Pretoria, South Africa debating how evidence can be more widely used in decision making. The emphasis of the Evidence 2016 meeting was on shared learning across the continent, in support of Africa's development goals. Participants came from a diverse range of fields, including scientific advice, evidence-based medicine, policy evaluation and financial planning. Naledi Pandor, South Africa's minister for science and technology, opened the conference with a call for more decisions ...
At this by-election to fill the Witney seat after David Cameron broke his promise to continue being their MP and resigned after all, the first surprise is not that the Conservative candidate won it, but that their share of the vote fell from the 60% they achieved in 2015 to a more modest 45%. The Theresa May brand of Toreyism is not carrying all before it. But the even pleasanter surprise is that we Liberal Democrats quadrupled (yes, quadrupled ) our share of the vote, from the paltry 6.8% received in 2015 to a healthy 30%. I have been out ...
You will not have my hate Brilliant by Natalie Ceeney @ceeneynatalie. (tags: work politics psychology ) Aberfan - 50 years on Never to be forgotten. (tags: wales ) Does Wallonia's veto of CETA spell the beginning of the end of EU trade policy? Great piece from @CEPS_thinktank. (tags: eu ) Donald Trump Is the First Demagogue of the Anthropocene How climate change is affecting politics. (tags: climatechange Uspolitics ) We spoke to the meninist tampon tax guy The stupid - it burns! (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality ) ASL Hamilton - The World Was Wide Enough I'm enjoying these. (tags: hamilton )
"Hey, I've arrived at Twyford" I said into the first mobile phone I ever owned. This being 2005 it was, inevitably, a Nokia 3510. "Oh OK" came the reply from Simon, the Liberal Democrat organiser for Maidenhead constituency, followed by a pause. "But I thought we'd agreed to meet at Maidenhead station" he continued. "Oh shit, yes we [...]
With the US presidential election a few weeks away I thought it might be time to dig out of the archive Jonathan Meades's excellent evisceration of Donald Trump from 2011. Enjoy.
I awoke this morning to the voice of Labour's Tom Watson MP explaining why falling to 3rd place and a reduction in the Labour share of the vote in the Witney by-election was a good result for Labour. He had a go at the Lib Dems for sending 100 peers to a constituency he claimed we knew we couldn't win. He said it was "cruel"! I have lots of bundles of Focuses still to deliver so I'm happy to
