You won't often find me writing a headline like that, but it is a genuine pleasure to see Durham City Labour Party's last campaign meeting minutes. Of particular encouragement to teaching assistants will be the following: [IMG: City of Durham Labour Party Minutes] The confirmation that this is a dispute which should be quite easily soluble with a cost neutral regrading is one that Liberal Democrats have promoted throughout this process. It's therefore extremely encouraging to see it being promoted through at least one Constituency Labour Party. In case it's hard to read in the image above, here are the ...

Posted by Owen Temple on Owen Temple & Margaret Nealis

I could make this a longer piece, but I'm not going to. My Liberal Democrat party membership lapsed last month, at the end of a period in which my party had bombarded me with increasingly manic emails from the Reader's Digest playbook, saying how much the Lib Dems have "loved having me in our family", or ghastly words to that effect. To paraphrase Boston Legal, "It's not a family; it's a political party".They say that the family that plays together, stays together, but - in Lib Dem terms - I'm not playing any more. To be a member of a ...

Posted by Matthew Harris on Matthew Harris

The reopened Waverley Route currently ends at Tweedbank, just north of Melrose. I am not sure how further restoration would be reconciled with the town's bypass.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
Mon 24th
20:35

Six of the Best 636

"The gargantuan task undertaken by all involved would, as we know now, have an outcome which seems completely deserved, and is now being rightly celebrated." Katharine Pindar reports on the Liberal Democrat campaign in Witney. James Bloodworth asks why so many Westerners, from right and left, love Vladimir Putin: "Whether they like it or not, those who choose to appear on RT are acting as useful idiots for a revanchist imperial power that shows little interest in the causes conventional 'progressives' profess to care about." Carolyne Willow argues that councils mustn't be excused from their legal duties to vulnerable children ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Embed from Getty Images I have been learning more about Julian Knight, the Tory MP who blocked me for retweeting him. As that tweet showed, he is not one to go to for betting tips. If he tells you to back Rutland Lad in the 2.30, then pile in on its rival. But he does speak sense on Europe. Here he is writing for the Solihull Observer in February: After my discussions with local employers, and having weighed the arguments carefully, I have decided to vote to Remain in the EU. The UK is doing very well: we're creating a ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Second paragraph of third story ("Earth", by Jim Mortimore)It hunched on a plain of black glass beneath a dully shining, blotched red globe which covered three quarters of the sky. A human being from the twentieth century might have recognised the creature as an ant, though they certainly wouldn't have recognised the cool, bloated orb which the hot yellow sun of the twentieth century had swelled over time inconceivable to become.I'm way behind on bookblogging - I think it is more than two weeks since I finished this. It dates from the far-off time of 2005 when Pluto was still ...

Embed from Getty Images Purposeful efficiency at the Corn Street headquarters, a fair-sized room full of people moving about. Friendly greeting from the man with the large-shelved bookcase stuffed with leaflets and letters, whisked to the registration desk with people busy at computers behind it, more friendly smiles plus tea and cake. It was the middle of Tuesday afternoon. And there was the candidate, Liz Leffman, pausing between trips out, pleased to meet another Cumbrian volunteer. I had just missed Tim, apparently, now on his way back to London after his fourth, penultimate, visit. (How had he managed four? I'd ...

Posted by Katharine Pindar on Liberal Democrat Voice
Mon 24th
17:51

Status Update

Just a brief note to explain why there's been few new posts in the last week or so — I came down with a bad case of flu eleven days ago. I got over the main symptoms and became well ... Continue reading →

Posted by Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

OK, so I've not posted for a little while, and so much has happened in the political world. It's hard to know where to start (which is partly why I haven't for a while!), so I'll start outside that world altogether. This is an issue that's been getting on my nerves for a very long time, so I thought I'd start here. It should be no shock to anyone that there's a great deal of cheating in football. We're not just talking about that odd bit of 'overacting' when a foul has occurred, though that is obviously bad enough. There ...

Posted by Cen Phillips on Liberal Thoughts

I seem to be one of the few Lib Dem activists in south England that did not go to the Witney by-election – though I was one of the earliest donors to the campaign fighting fund. The party stormed forwards from fourth place to a respectable second, with 30% of the vote, with the Conservative ... Continue reading Core vote or protest vote: what does Witney mean for the Lib Dems? →

Posted by Matthew on thinking liberal
YouGov

[IMG: 85 r] I had a Jeremy Corbyn moment (or is that Momentum?) today. I got on a Merseyrail train at Bootle Strand Station about 1.40pm travelling towards Southport and there were no seats. Well there was one that I spotted when we got to Seaforth & Litherland Station but I pointed it out to an elderly lady. At Waterloo the train significantly emptied out; wonder where folks were going to? It's now up to Merseyrail to say that I am not telling the whole truth I suppose:-))))) The photo is amongst my Flickr shots at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

South Glos Council has been thinking about the responses to the library consultation earlier this year and has now come up with a new set of proposals. The effects for our area are as follows: Savings target reduced from £650,000 to £500,000 (within a budget of £2.6million, so about 20%)Staffed opening hours to be reduced by a smaller amount than proposed in consultation phase 1"Swipe card" access allowing opening hours to be extendedMobile library service to be replaced with community centre based libraries across South Glos and run by volunteer groups, plus the the esisting home visit serviceChipping Sodbury Library ...

Posted by Paul Hulbert on Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington

Here are the results of the election of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors (ALDC) Management Committee for 2016-2018: OFFICERS President Baroness Cllr Kath Pinnock (Kirklees) Chair Mayor Dave Hodgson (Bedford) Vice-Chair (2) Cllr Anood Al-Samerai (Southwark) Cllr Steven Lambert (Buckinghamshire and Aylesbury Vale) Secretary Cllr Sarah Boad (Warwickshire) Treasurer Veronica German (Torfaen) ORDINARY MEMBERS English Representative Cllr Gerald Vernon Jackson (Portsmouth) Scottish Representative Cllr Willie Wilson (Perth and Kinross) Welsh Representative Paul Halliday (Newport) Members (10) Cllr Manuel Abellan (Sutton) Victor Chamberlain (Southwark) Cllr Paul Clark (North Hertfordshire) Cllr Alan Connett (Devon and Teignbridge) Becky Forrest (Bolton) Cllr Claire ...

Posted by ALDC on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: Site for the new Maghull North Railway Station. Photo taken looking north from School Lane road bridge. The former Moss Side Hospital site is to the right and Mersey Avenue to the left.] Site for the new Maghull North Railway Station. Photo taken looking north from School Lane road bridge. The former Moss Side Hospital site is to the right and Mersey Avenue to the left. The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above. I have lost track (sorry) of the number of announcements and re-announcements about the building of Maghull's yet to appear second railway ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Embed from Getty Images In The Times today(£), Tim Farron has a "Red Box" article which accompanies his speech tonight on post-Brexit hate crime and rising xenophobia. He begins: It has been absolutely heartbreaking to see the spike in racist and xenophobic attacks after the referendum. Britain did not become Great Britain on fear, isolation and division. Britain did not become Great Britain through short-termist politicians who put the needs of one part of society above the rest. Yet the party leading our beautiful country — the party that should be celebrating our wonderful diversity — is acting as if ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

The Guardian reports that: A bakery in Northern Ireland owned by evangelical Christians has lost an appeal to overturn a conviction that found it guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a pro-gay-marriage themed cake. The court of appeal in Belfast on Monday upheld a previous judgment last year that Ashers Bakery had discriminated against [...]

Posted by Mark Mills on Matter Of Facts

"Then why didn't anyone tell us this during the referendum campaign? I thought the referendum was about immigration. If what you say about the single market is true, the other EU countries are never going to let us stay in the single market if we leave the EU. It's all a complete load of nonsense." Continue reading →

Posted by Simon Perks on Simon Perks

In my article in the Gazette, I caution the International Olympic Committee against undermining the World Anti-Doping Agency. Not everyone who stands up to you is your enemy, just as not everyone who flatters you is your friend.

As Brexit looks ever more inevitable, it's pretty imperative that as a member of GenX and almost a millennial - I was born in 1979. I have to make sure I'm in the best position to deal with the next twenty years. Hopefully we will avoid a recession but most analysts understand our growth will not be what it could have been. Some of the things I have done, considered or been suggested to me are below. Not all of it is relevant to me, and may not be to you, but still thought worth noting it all down in ...

Posted by Louise Ankers on From one of the Jilted Generation...

[IMG: Donald Trump pumkin by Alex Cole-Hamilton] It's that time of the year again. Could you please send us photos of your Halloween pumpkins? We have had great fun with this in the past. As a taster, here above is a rather unnerving effort produced by Alex Cole-Hamilton. We're delighted that Alex is still finding time to keep up his Pumpkin art despite the pressures of office. This is "Trumpkin".

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice
eUKhost

Yesterday morning I headed down to Whickham to help with Planting Up Whickham's maintenance day on Church Green. My land rover was needed as the flowerbeds were being stripped of the summer flowers which needed to be moved to the compost heap in Chase Park. The work was completed quite early, thanks to the good turnout of volunteers. We will be back in two weeks' time to put in the spring

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

The answer is probably. There are ways in which Brexit avoids extreme constitutional difficulties, but they are becoming trickier to spot. First there is the nations problem. This has been overplayed in the media, but is still a real issue. Putting aside Scottish independence concerns, it appears that it's already nailed on that Northern Ireland is going to have to get some sort of a special deal in order to avoid real problems there. And when you give the Northern Irish a special deal, it begs the question of why the Scots and Welsh can't get one as well. That ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 23-10-2016 posted The Blood is the Life for 23-10-2016 on #dreamwidth [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

Report of the Returning Officer Following the ballot of ALDC members the following persons have been declared elected: OFFICERS President Baroness Cllr Kath Pinnock (Kirklees) Chair Mayor Dave Hodgson (Bedford) Vice-Chair (2) Cllr Anood Al-Samerai (Southwark Cllr Steven Lambert (Buckinghamshire and Aylesbury Vale) Secretary Cllr Sarah Boad (Warwickshire) Treasurer Veronica German (Torfaen) ORDINARY MEMBERS English [...]

Posted by Tim Pickstone on Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors

Embed from Getty Images This evening at Queen Mary University, London, Tim Farron will be speaking at an event with The Runnymede Trust addressing the issue of post-Brexit hate crime and rising xenophobia. This occasion is part of "Black History Month". Other speakers are Dr Omar Khan of the Runnymede Trust, Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece, the Lib Dem Equalities Spokesperson and Sunder Katwala of British Future. Here's a sneak preview of some of the things Tim will say: On the climate of hate 2016 has been a year in that has seen the Conservative Party's attempts to detoxify their party go ...

Posted by NewsHound on Liberal Democrat Voice
Mon 24th
10:26

Reflections on Witney

It is evident that the Lib Dem performance in Witney was an overwhelmingly positive occurrence. The biggest swing in a Conservative-held seat since the freak Winchester by-election of 1997, the campaign was also remarkable for its positive and welcoming atmosphere. The party has learned to have fun again; it has been a unifying experience. To what extent, though, has it contributed to the party's recovery from the long-term damage sustained under Nick Clegg's leadership? This is more debatable. The starting base was a local party in decline for a decade: a track record of campaigning that was patchy but had ...

Posted by Liberator Collective on Liberator's blog

Erik Solheim has it right when he points out that controlling online information about you, your cause or your organisation requires...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Embed from Getty Images The result in the Witney by-election was a substantial swing to the LibDems, jumping from fourth place on 6.8% to second place on 30.2%. Liz Leffman and her team did an outstanding job, and the party was clearly ready to rally to the cause. Over the next few days there were speculations about what that would mean if replicated at a General Election, with estimates of the number of seats likely to switch from Tory to LibDem put between 26 and 51. The statistician in me is wary of those extrapolations: there are lots of unknowns ...

Posted by Mark Argent on Liberal Democrat Voice

The report by Shami Chakrabarti into anti-semitism in the Labour Party continues to make waves with revelations in today's media that Jeremy Corbyn discussed giving the former director of Liberty a peerage with his team in March, and claims she was aware her name was listed before agreeing to conduct a Labour report into anti-Semitism. The Telegrpah says that the Labour leader is understood to have long-listed Baroness Chakrabarti for an honour after he was made aware that new peers would be created by David Cameron following the EU referendum. They add that Chakrabarti, who is now Labour's shadow attorney ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
Mon 24th
08:45

West End Ward Surgeries

With the schools back today - Monday 24th October - after the autumn holiday, my West End Ward Surgeries recommence : 4.20pm - The Base, Mitchell Street Centre; 4.50pm - Harris Academy, reception area.

Mon 24th
08:30

Photopolis : Logie House

The manor house of Logie (below) was apparently in existence prior to 1660, but from 1722-78 extensive alterations were carried out. The building was demolished in 1908. Cleghorn Street was named after William Cleghorn, manufacturer, who long occupied Logie House as tenant, and afterwards became proprietor of the estate of Logie. Following the removal of Logie House, tenements were erected on the most of the lands.

[IMG: Amber Rudd: controversial speech at Tory Conference] Amber Rudd: controversial speech at Tory Conference In the run-up to the referendum, on immigration immigration seemed key to the Leave campaign, who pushed in an irrational and emotional way. They correctly identified that people were sensitive to this. There were scare stories that Turkey was about to be rushed into the EU and posters with an arrow from Turkey to the UK and the number "76 million", strongly implying that vast numbers were queuing up to come to the UK. All that was missing was evidence. I saw another poster with ...

Posted by Mark Argent on Mark Argent :: blog

Last Thursday we had a parliamentary by-election in my home constituency of Batley and Spen. This was to replace our Labour MP Jo Cox who was murdered last June. Out of respect for Mrs Cox, and acknowledging that for this parliament anyway, or unless there was a vacancy for a "normal " reason, the replacement MP should be Labour, we Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, Greens and UKIP decided not to field candidates. That didn't stop nine others, mostly right-wing minorities or independents, taking advantage of the free leaflet delivery to flaunt their creeds. Top of the ballot paper was Mr, ...

Posted by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal

Social science can help explain why people disagree over controversial technologies and - most importantly - surface hidden assumptions It's been another turbulent month in the long-running saga over the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Having looked as if she might be contemplating a rethink, Theresa May unveiled an apparently decisive approval just before the Conservative Party conference. But with longstanding issues still unaddressed - and new problems emerging even since the PM's announcement - the debate over Hinkley is far from over. Now might be a good moment, then, to reflect on the contribution that social science can ...

Posted by Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone on Political science | The Guardian

What Happened to Eastern Airlines Flight 980? Brilliant account of a quest for the truth. (tags: travel history death ) Unapproved Routes: The Irish Border, 1922-1972 - Dancing at the crossroads of history Sounds interesting! (tags: northernireland ireland ) Hamilton's America: Full Film Brilliant brilliant documentary. Watch it! (tags: hamilton ) The eight LEAST haunted places in Northern Ireland Actually quite funny. (tags: Northernireland Funny ) EU set for 'dirty Brexit' View from Brussels. (tags: brexit ukpolitics eu )

The other day, I had a numbness come over it. It wasn't a physical numbness although it felt very physical. No, it as psychological. It was a numbness of the mind. It started mid-afternoon and continued throughout the evening. In fact, it developed into a feeling of fear and dread. I couldn't put my finger on what I was meant to be fearing, but this feeling consumed me. It was sat binging on Netflix until I realised that if I stayed sat there on my sofa all night, this feeling of dread was going to keep getting worse and worse. ...

Posted by The Mec Journal on The Mec Journal

Politics and self-sufficiency took back seats on Saturday afternoon when we headed to St Mary's Church in Whickham for the wedding of Cllr Peter Maughan and Jol Loughlin. Congratulations to both. Alas, I ended up on a table with all the other politicians!

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace