Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, on behalf of the Lib-Dems in Broxtowe. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. We have a new record for the number of subscribers this week. It has however been quite a quiet week for news. I suspect that most people are still in shock from the Americans electing Donald Trump as their next president! I think I have now caught up on all the outstanding emails from the past couple of weeks so if you ...
The blurb for this short video on Youtube runs: Before World War II, EML Lembit was one of the two submarines built by the British for the Republic of Estonia. The Estonians held the largest and most successful national fund-raising event in Estonian history at which they donated scrap metal in order to pay for the submarine. When the Soviet Union occupied Estonia during World War II, Lembit became part of the Soviet fleet. Years later, two veterans who used to serve on the Lembit found the submarine abandoned in a river. It is now on display in the Estonian ...
Current Kings of the North, by Cecelia Holland AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers, ed. Nnedi Okorafor Tolstoy, by Henri Troyat Short Trips: The History of Christmas, ed. Simon Guerrier Last books finished Antarès, Épisode 1, by Leo Next books Angels & Visitations: A Miscellany, by Neil Gaiman Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past, by Paul Cartledge Books acquired in last two weeks Europe in the Sixteenth Century, ed. H.G. Koenigsberger & George L. Mosse Prime Minister Corbyn: and other things that never happened, eds. Duncan Brack and Iain Dale
Sat 12th
20:13
Neal Ascherson: Theresa May's government is ramming through a damaging policy it doesn't believe in
Neal Ascherson is always worth reading. Here he is in the London Review of Books on the sorry spectacle that is Theresa May's government: Nothing in British history resembles this spectacle of men and women ramming through policies everyone knows they don't believe in. Never mind the few genuine Brexiteers. Amber Rudd, Philip Hammond and Theresa May - among others in government - all tried to keep the UK in the European Union. Now they are trying to take it out again, apparently on the terms that will do their country most damage. There's a kind explanation, a white-coated one ...
EU foreign ministers are meeting on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the US election. Our Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson brings shame on himself, his office and our country by announcing he will not turn up. The UK remains a member of the EU for the time being and should make its voice heard fully in Europe for as long as it can. The US election result has important implications for Europe. Just as European politics affects the US. The shape of trade between the EU and USA may be affected by Trump's win (will TTIP happen, how might it ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37962425 The BBC has the story on its web site – See link above Now here's some good news in times where there is precious little of it. I hope that ethical advertising placement will start to take a hold as the best place to hit the tabloid press, which seems particularly out of control at present, is via their pockets.
One of our contributors has drawn our attention to this video, which we happily share with you.
Steve, Jayne and Muhammad are supporting the Save Our Pharmacies campaign. The Government has decided that £170 million will be cut from pharmacies in 2016/17. This massive cut could lead to the closure of one in four pharmacies – that would mean eleven across the borough of Sutton. Pharmacies offer a huge range of services [...]
I don't live in a complete filter bubble — I am privileged enough to have other people's political opinions not cause me immediate, direct, harm, and so I have friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, across all political divides (though ... Continue reading →
[IMG: treaty] It is Liberal Democrat policy to hold a referendum on the terms of Brexit, but I think it is clear from reading Article 50 and the High Court judgment that once we have notified the European Council that we are leaving there is no method to stop us leaving. Article 50 of the Treaty reads: Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, ...
Howie Diddit, News Director of a Major Media Organisation, is interviewed about the 2016 US Presidential election.
In the latest post in a series on experts, Reiner Grundmann argues that even in the world of Brexit and President Trump expertise is alive and well. However, we must pay close attention to how it is used in politics. Over the past months senior politicians in the UK have called into question the role of experts in politics. Much of this view is linked to the Brexit debate and Michael Gove's comment that 'people in this country have had enough of experts'. He was responding to alarming predictions from economic experts, including the governor of the bank of England, ...
What's the background then? In a report presented to the Cambs Police and Crime Panel: "In order to balance the budget, savings of £16.1 million have been made between 2013/14 and 2016/17, to achieve the overarching aim to deliver an efficient and effective police service for the people of Cambridgeshire which is sustainable for the future. Every effort [...]
Online registration has opened for the next Liberal Democrat federal (UK-wide) conference, being held in York 17-19 March.
Sat in the Legh Arms in Mere Brow the other day and my eyes caught an old bottle which turned out to be an aged sherry. On closer examination and it turned out to be Jerez Heldona Sherry that had been shipped and bottled by W G Wood Ltd of Southport. The company crest shows the date of 1909. [IMG: wp_20161103_13_32_45_pro] Southport has never been famous for its sherry has it?
Whether you voted in or out in the EU Referendum surely you want to know what the outcome and consequences are when the UK has gone through it's leaving negotiations. After all we were only asked whether we wanted to leave or not; the consequences of leaving were speculated on during the referendum campaign and have been talked about since but we don't actually know what they will be with any clarity. On that basis I have always felt that we need to look at the deal that comes out of the negotiation process to decided whether it is acceptable ...
[IMG: Chester A Arthur, possibly the least experienced President to date.] Chester A Arthur, possibly the least experienced President to date. Because I'm still sorting out my serious thoughts since the US election, here's a couple of bits of new Presidential trivia that Trump will create: Trump will be the seventh US President to have not held any elected office before winning a national election. The previous six were Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S Grant, Chester A Arthur, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower. Of those six, Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower were all generals, Arthur was a Vice-President who ...
Sat 12th
08:33
No, Donald Trump is not a liberal or a centrist - unless those terms have lost all meaning
We've had many "unexpected" people try and claim that Donald Trump is actually one of their bunch, and further, has been all along. And the guy hasn't even been president-elect for a week yet. Embarrassingly, both sides of the Labour Party have got in on the act. View Emily Thornberry and her "Jeremy is like Trump except without all the hateful yucky stuff" routine, which I hope for all of our sakes is short-lived. On the other wing, some ex-Blairite corporals have also been spouting gibberish about Trump not only being a centrist but being centrism "turbo charged". The idea ...
Residents have highlighted to me the poor state of parts of the road surface of Blackness Road - much of this caused by utilities' work on the road. The photos below were kindly supplied by a local resident : I have highlighted this issue with the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership, requesting improvements.
The Independent has an interesting article looking at some of the news and reports released by the UK Government this week that appear to have slipped under the radar as revealed by Liberal Democrats leader, Tim Farron. These include a report released on the day of the American election results in which the Ministry of Justice concluded that the treatment of transgender people in courts, probation and prison services "had not kept apace with development of a more general understanding of the issues surrounding gender in society". Another example is the Government revealing in a written statement earlier this week ...
Depression is a very common illness yet very few people can convey what it is like. We just lost one of them. Going to bed no longer frightens me. These days, I basically take that for granted. But when it first came about – after two years of not being true - it was the sweetest [...]
