The BSFA longlist was published last weekend, and as ever I'm running the books through Goodreas and LibraryThing, to track both number of owners on each system (you have to dig into Goodreads a bit for that, but it is there) and the average rating of each book. The results are as follows (ranked by geometrical average of number of owners), the top nine of the 34 entries in each column indicated in bold: Goodreads LibraryThing owners av rating owners av rating Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad 161127 4.07 1052 4.14 N K Jemisin - The Fifth Season 73486 ...
Embed from Getty Images The Spiked website has far too much reflex contrarianism, but there are still good articles there if you look. Here is Tim Black on Graham Taylor and his hounding by the media: Taylor's time in charge of the national team coincided with football's post-1990 explosion as the National Game. Long a passionate pastime for many, football, by the time of the formation of the lucrative BSkyB-backed Premiership in 1992, had become the cultural centrepiece of national life. Those who may once have ignored it descended from the cultural heights to embrace it. Classical musicians wore club ...
We should support the RCGP and GPs generally not ask them to do the impossible with stretched budgets and too few staff We are asking a hell of a lot from our GPs at the moment. We want them to ... Continue reading →
The news that Alex Carlile is going to sit as a crossbench peer rather than a Liberal Democrat is perhaps not surprising. His views on civil liberties and his passionate advocacy for the state to have greater surveillance powers often put him at odds not just with the Lords group but with the wider party. PoliticsHome says: Lord Carlile felt the party "was not taking a strong enough line in support of surveillance," a senior Lib Dem source told PoliticsHome. "He was unhappy with our stance on the Snooper's Charter," the source added. "We made a big thing about voting ...
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. Are you a Lib Dem and a computer coder? Or perhaps someone who is a whizz at documenting software for users? Or you have just the skills to carry out penetration testing to help ensure a new web service is secure? Or any other relevant hands-on skills for building, testing and deploying digital services? Then the Liberal Democrat Software Group on Facebook is just the place for you. After a really ...
Except Stella Creasy tells me she did not say this. See the footnote. The moderate wing of Labour plots its path back to power. At #Fab17 @stellacreasy says if you don't get Mrs Brown's Boys and, in US, Duck Hunters, you don't connect with real society. pic.twitter.com/a7Lh9MMpDN— Rob Shepherd (@robshepherd) January 14, 2017I have my doubts. Or as Mrs Brown would put it... Footnote. After I tweeted the link to this post I received a reply from Stella Creasy: I expressly didn't say this ... Which is ironic when you see what I actually said about echo chambers..I have asked ...
In an article for the New Statesman, Tom Brake explains why the Liberal Democrats will be fighting the Copeland candidate with our excellent candidate, Rebecca Hanson. The brief summary is that you can't have a "Progressive Alliance" with a party that isn't very progressive. Labour's approach to Brexit is something that we could not support. But ultimately we will not help progressive politics if we stand aside for Corbyn's Labour, which would merely give the left false hope that someone of the hard left could become Prime Minister. To us, a Eurosceptic statist such as Corbyn is not even progressive. ...
Embed from Getty Images "Exploring 'Life on Mars'" is an exceptional BBC radio documentary which is available on iPlayer for another 25 days. Ostensibly it is about how "Life on Mars" came about, but, in fact, it is broader than that – it is basically about the making of "Hunky Dory" – my favourite Bowie album. It really is a corker of a documentary – with input from Ken Scott, the co-producer of "Hunky Dory", Dana Gillespie, Rick Wakeman, who played piano on 'Life on Mars' etc. And there are some exceptional archive recordings. To hear Mick Ronson counting in ...
This is my second in My Deepest series that will cover my Deepest fear, desire and love. This came about because I think that you can only fully understand a person if you know what is going on deep down inside them. Take me for example, many people believe my deepest fear is to either be a complete failure or heights. Now it is true that I have fears of both those things, my deepest fear is to be a disappointment. Now we move onto what my deepest desire is. My deepest desire is to change the World and to ...
Nick Clegg's excellent book, "Politics: Between the Extremes", released in September, provides a useful perspective on the new parameters which seem to define British politics. As became clear in 2016, politics is not just a battle between right and left or statist versus anti-statist perspectives any more, but between open versus closed economies and Brexit versus Remain. But I think Clegg's analysis would have benefited from exploring more deeply how old and therefore un-random these changes are. Specifically, Clegg's Twelfth Chapter Was Roy Right? suggests Roy Jenkins- who died in 2003 and in the 1980s was the leading political and ...
[IMG: Peel's cranes at Liverpool 2's deep water river berth for colossal sized container ships, Seaforth.] Peel's cranes at Liverpool 2's deep water river berth for colossal sized container ships, Seaforth. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-38610432 The BBC has the story on its web site – see link above Makes you wonder how when so much investment is going into the Port of Liverpool such a basic necessity of life i.e. toilets have been overlooked. The other odd part of the BBC story that struck me was why it was seemingly being suggested that local councils should provide toilet facilities. Now I could just ...
Sat 14th
09:09
The current Unite leadership contest lays all of the problems of the British Left out bare
Besides letting us all have a chuckle at Len McCluskey considering his re-election something of a formality only to find his position far from assured, the campaign around who will be general secretary of Unite the Union tells us pretty much everything one might wish to know about the travails of the modern Left in Britain. Michael Chessum, the Momentum activist who often writes for the New Statesman, wrote an article at the end of this week entitled "Len McCluskey's grip on Unite is far from assured". It lays bare all of the problems of the Left, some of which ...
The following story from the latest Liberal Democrat Women newsletter is very relevant to a wider audience too, so here it is: At the request of the Party President and the Federal Executive, Lord Alderdice will be conducting an independent inquiry into improving process and culture within the Liberal Democrats with a focus on race and ethnicity. The review will examine the issues and/or barriers faced by BAME members and supporters and will help the party to determine what and where the issues are and how we act in this specific area. Lord Alderdice is now in the process of ...
Sat 14th
08:30
Consultation on Not Just A Roof - A Housing Options and Homelessness Strategic Plan 2016 -2021
Dundee Health and Social Care Partnership are seeking your views about Not Just A Roof - A Housing Options and Homelessness Strategic Plan 2016-2021. The Strategic Plan has been developed around outcomes which people who have experienced homelessness have identified as important. It aims to enable citizens of Dundee to be able to live a fulfilled life in their own home or homely setting. If people do become homeless, they will be able to access quality information, advice and support which will enable them to live a fulfilled life and gain and maintain their own home. The Dundee Health and ...
UK to stay under EU law in post-Brexit phase, Malta says Unwelcome news for some I'm sure, but realistic. (tags: ukpolitics eu brexit )
The Independent reports that Nigel Farage has been accused of misleading Donald Trump over the state of the Brussels bloc by the US ambassador to the European Union: Anthony Gardner said the former UKIP leader had given the President-elect a false impression that more countries might follow Britain out of the bloc by inflating the level of euro-scepticism in Europe. He added that it would be "lunacy" to follow UKIP's lead in supporting the "fragmentation of Europe" and urged Mr Trump not to treat the EU as "dysfunctional". That approach would be "fundamentally flawed", he said. Mr Gardner who has ...
