All over the weekend the people of Derry/Londonderry have be scouring the banks of the Foyle searching for the body of Jack Glenn the Grandson of one of my dad's cousins. Today also marks the tenth anniversary of my father's death. About this time 31 years ago I very nearly did what Jack Glenn did and end my own life by jumping into freezing cold water. Seeing the love extended to and the grief experienced by members of my expanding family makes me glad I didn't become another statistic in some data base to some. But a deeply regretted loss ...
This is deep Shropshire, west of the Stiperstones and hard against the Welsh border. The video blends stunning drone shots from today with photos from 50 years ago or more. Some of the locations have featured on this blog, including Hope church and the new Hope school. In one of the photographs of the farm sale you can see the while hillocks of Snailbeach in the distance. The structure shown on the 19th century photograph of the lead workings at Roman Gravels was blown up by the Royal Engineers during Word War II as a training exercise.
Embed from Getty Images He probably looked fat and depressed when he did it, and he is certainly operating two levels of irony beyond the appreciation of his keenest fans, but Stewart Lee has joined the Liberal Democrats. The news was announced in an Observer column yesterday: My constituency voted 78% remain. On Wednesday, my MP was too ill to vote. I'm joining the Liberal Democrats, itself on some level a hopeless admission of defeat.Welcome aboard, Stewart. Some of us admitted defeat when we were teenagers. These passages in his column caught my attention: But, with Trump's trade deal help, ...
After the argument and trauma of the EU Referendum and the sharp division that it has caused amongst Labour and Tory Parties the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election comes at a critical junction. If the advance of the far-right is stopped here in Stoke-on-Trent it will be because of the campaign lead by Dr Zulfiqar Ali and the Liberal Democrats.So with 16 full days before the final polling day the schedule is going to impossibly tight. This article is to give you a short rundown of the plans and the ambition for the next week. If this week's programme does not convince ...
As if Ukip wasn't in enough trouble with its party leader under police investigation, one of Nigel Farage's closest aides facing jail after being convicted of fraud, having to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds after breaking financial rules, seeing a friendly think tank have payments to it suspended following yet more allegations and being under investigation by the Electoral Commission over claims of other rule breaking, now a Ukip MEP is having to pay out £156,000 in libel damages: A Ukip MEP must pay £162,000 in damages to Rotherham's three Labour MPs over remarks made about the town's notorious ...
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats, marking the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats was interviewed on BBC1's News at Six this evening. He was right to support John Bercow.
Chris White (centre) talking about Brexit District Council leaders met in Lichfield late last week for the District Council Network conference. The DCN is part of the Local Government Association – which comprises most English and Welsh councils – and is a group set up to concentrate specifically on issues affecting district councils. There are similar groups for counties, metropolitan authorities and London boroughs. Representatives in Kenilworth were clearly bruised by the decision of ministers to plug some of the adult care services funding gap facing county councils by transferring funds directly from districts. Phrases like 'robbing Peter to pay ...
Over four years of family history research has re-enforced to me how we are all one global, single community. It's incredible when you scratch under the surface just a small amount, to find so many long-lost, far-flung connections around the world all with roots back to the same place. A Pembrokeshire Base I've been very lucky in my research in that I am based in Pembrokeshire where I can trace both my immediate paternal and maternal lines all the way back to the late 1700s at the very least. Mine is a very 'Pembrokeshire' family on all sides with all ...
Embed from Getty Images Today, MPs began debating amendments to the Government's White Paper entitled "The United Kingdom's exit from and new partnership with the European Union" in the Committee stage. We publish this speech from Kenneth Clarke (from last week's Article 50 Commons debate) in the hope of putting some "backbone" (Alistair Campbell's word) into MPs as they contemplate a national cordless bungee jump into a dark abyss. We don't normally publish speeches by Conservatives, but this one has a particularly good section about Alice in Wonderland, and an excellent ending, referring to Burke: I am very fortunate to ...
On Friday I was invited to the opening of the Skeleton Secrets of the Animal World display at the Great North Museum in Newcastle. Many of the exhibits have been in storage for years. I did however spot this backbone and was left wondering if it was Labour's spine, evidently missing during recent months. Labour and museum go well together.
The lack of affordable housing in the UK is at crisis point. On average, house prices are now almost seven times people's incomes and over 1.6 million people are on housing waiting lists in the UK, including 124 000 homeless children. This means that the Government's White Paper on housing has been highly anticipated. But it needs to be extraordinarily ambitious to tackle the severity of the housing crisis. It is too late then to simply paper over the cracks. We need a radical, far-reaching and comprehensive approach to housing. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a ...
The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above This is a matter which I have been blogging about for a long time now and I still feel angry about it. A classic cart before the horse situation if ever I saw one. The new Liverpool 2 River Berth catering for massive Post Panamax container ships is planned, constructed and completed before any serious thought is given as to how the increased freight is going to get to and from it. You really could not make this up as a planning absurdity but that's pretty much what has ...
There's an active and friendly Liberal Democrat community on Reddit, the social network site which is often nicknamed 'the frontpage of the internet'.
A routine safety inspection was conducted on the ramp and steps structure on 03 February. During the inspection it was noted that the current deterioration of the timber sections is such that structure is now deemed unsafe. The deterioration has accelerated since the last inspection in December. Owing to the extent of the deterioration observed [...]
Last summer, my childhood memoir, Eccles Cakes: An Odd Tale of Survival, was published and a number of people have asked me why I waited so long to write it. After all, I had produced 14 volumes of biography, history and other non-fiction since 1975, so why wait until I was in my mid-sixties? The [...]
On Wednesday, February 1st, people from D66, myself included, attended a medium-sized (2.500 people for an event organized in 3 days) demonstration in The Hague about Trumps policies (immigration ban; Muslims; Disabled; Women) and style of politics and government. This being an election campaign season, it was also attended by party leaders of PvdA (Labour), D66 (Dutch LibDems) and the Greens; and NGO's like Amnesty and Oxfam NOVIB (=Dutch branch Oxfam) sent speakers. So far nothing remarkable. But it was exceptional that the PvdA party leader, Asscher, is also vice prime minister and minister on Immigrants Integration, and that the ...
Mon 6th
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Tory Minister rules out introducing legislation to prevent repeat of #StMichaelsGateSaga
What's this to do with? It's to do with the the St Michael's Gate issue, whereby the Tory controlled Council has done a deal, which will see local families and individuals forced out their homes, in order to provide temporary accommodation for the homeless. If you are one of the few unfamiliar with this ongoing [...]
Over the weekend, Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton went to his second protest of the week against Donald Trump's travel ban in Edinburgh. This time, he spoke to the 1500 strong crowd. Here's what he said: Edinburgh I'm proud to know you. You're in great voice and that matters because we are here, we are unified and we are part of a global resistance to the biggest threat to humanity since the Second World War. Now I don't know about you but I settled down to watch the US election results with hope in my heart. Hope that I could ...
Claims by Govia and Network Rail bosses that they are working very hard to improve services, have been slammed by Liberal Democrats as a product of "living in la la land". The claims were made at a special council "Question time on rail services" on Thursday 2 February, where passenger groups including the community campaign [...]
One of Lynne Featherstone's main achievements in government was around tackling Female Genital Mutilation. She has recorded a message for today's International Day of Zero Tolerance against FGM. And here is the letter that she has written to Justine Greening and Theresa May on the subject: 6th February, 2017 Dear Theresa and Justine It is International Day for Zero Tolerance on Female Genital Mutilation - but we are still tolerating it. There is more we must do. You both supported the campaign I spearheaded in Government to eradicate FGM here and abroad. You both have a proud record on this ...
Your Focus Team is continuing to fight for a better 82 bus service, after the last bus of the day was cut in January. On Monday, local councillor Claire Young spoke out again at the South Gloucestershire Council Public Transport Forum. Losing the last bus of the day is a blow not just to those visiting relatives in hospital but also to workers at the Mall, Cribbs Causeway. They are having to catch buses into the centre of Bristol and back out to places like Yate and Coalpit Heath, getting home very late at night. Your Focus Team is pushing ...
While on holiday last week, the view from my hotel room was of a British tourist enjoying a spot of fishing. He caught a small fish which he impaled on a barbed hook to be used to catch a larger fish. In Scotland, this would be illegal as there, live vertebrates cannot be used as fishing bait. South of the border however we lack such decisiveness. As Boris Johnson quipped when speaking about the EU last year, he is pro cake and pro eating cake, and such nonsense is all too often applied to issues of animal welfare and conservation. ...
News reaches us that the Labour Party are trying to come to some sort of arrangement with both the Lib Dems and the Greens in Stoke Central in an effort to keep Paul Nuttall out of parliament. This tells you that Labour really do think they will lose the seat to UKIP in a few weeks time; it is also a continuation of the extremely flawed re-launch "strategy" being pursued by Corbyn at present. For starters, what would such an alliance be founded upon? Is it just an anti-Tory, anti-UKIP thing? That has never been enough and won't be now. ...
Liberal Democrats have asked for an urgent explanation for the staggeringly high ambulance waiting times at Watford General – which are, by a long way, the worst across six counties. Liberal Democrat county Health spokesperson Chris White said: 'Figures show that more than 1000 working hours were lost while ambulances queued at this hospital – [...]
Brexit Lies a handy collection of lies told by the brexit campaign Screencap of 1983 dictionary definitions of "trumper" & "trumpery" No wonder the poor guy has such an inferiority complex Gove still promising £350 million a week post-brexit i guess he thinks if it doesn't happen for any reason he can always blame "remoaners" Please stop saying you don't date bi people the second someone comes out to you Apple's iTunes T&Cs comics now collected in a graphic novel The Observer has started agreeing with the lib dems again this gives me a sense of impending doom. Farron attacks ...
Sir Humphrey appears to be alive and well and living at the Department of Transport. I find it really pretty astonishing that nobody there seems to feel that Southern or Govia Thameslink passengers are owed some kind of explanation for having their lives turned upside down over the past eight months. Apparently not. The poor put-upon rail minister Paul Maynard tells us that the Chris Gibb report was too technical to be made public - this is the report by the man given a budget of £20m and told to report back on why Southern was really failing. I have ...
Last September an all too rare event could be seen at the exits of some Moscow metro stations: young people were dishing out leaflets in a campaign for candidates in the municipal elections of that year. They stood before stalls and banners emblazoned with a green circle intersected by a red wedge: the emblem of the Russian United Democratic Party - Yabloko. Whilst ever more stereotyped as a `centre of illiberalism`, the Russian Federation can boast its own liberal heritage - and one that culminated in the short-lived provisional government of early 1917. Yabloko might be viewed as the contemporary ...
The BBC has been investigating: Since the referendum the BBC has been trying to get the most detailed, localised voting data we could from each of the counting areas. This was a major data collection exercise carried out by my colleague George Greenwood. We managed to obtain voting figures broken down into smaller geographical units for 178 of the 399 referendum counting areas (380 councils in England, Wales and Scotland, with a separate tally in Gibraltar, while in Northern Irelandresults were issued for the 18 constituencies). This varied between data for individual local government wards, wards grouped into clusters, and ...
I have obtained assurances from Scottish and Southern Energy about a high-voltage electric cable replacement project for part of the West End, following the failure of the first attempt to replace the cable last year after some five weeks into roads disruption on Lochee Road, Fleuchar Street, Scott Street, Blinshall Street, Glenagnes Road and other roads in-between. Last year, after this disruption, the company abandoned the work as the new underground cabling failed a final quality test. Last year, whilst it was understood that the company would not implement a cabling system that failed a safety test, I questioned why ...
I asked 8 researchers why the science of nutrition is so messy. Here's what they said. Gosh. (tags: Science ) Former Catalan president defiant before trial over secession vote The stakes are being raised. (tags: spain catalonia )
Don't make scapegoats out of foreigners for the crisis facing the NHS. That's Tim Farron's message to Jeremy Hunt as the Government says it is going to get hospitals to check upfront whether people are eligible for free NHS treatment and charge them before treatment Because NHS staff don't have enough to do already. Tim said: We all want to see the NHS recover money owed it to it, but this is a completely disproportionate response to what is a fairly minor problem. The Health Secretary is turning NHS staff into the Border Force, its unacceptable. Asking people to show ...
Yesterday's Observer sets out in some detail why Parliament and the British people need to scrutinise in some detail how the Government is handling Brexit: Parliament has been given a vote on article 50 not as a result of pressure it applied itself, but because Gina Miller took the government to court. Mrs May shamefully resisted all the way up to the supreme court. The bill to trigger article 50 continues in that vein. While it might satisfy the courts, it is fundamentally undemocratic. There are no measures to give parliament a meaningful chance to scrutinise the terms of Britain's ...
Sherlock's final episode was by far its worse Author's note: I meant to publish this close to the time Sherlock's finale was broadcast but was travelling and I got distracted. Hope at least some of you are still interested in reading it. <Spoilers> I was six when my Dad started reading me Conan Doyle as [...]
