There has been a lot of inaccurate information disseminated in the aftermath of Nicola Sturgeon's stated intention to hold a second independence referendum between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019. This might sound tedious but it is important to clarify exactly how the process worked last time around and what relevance it has to how it might operate this time. Consider this a constitutional "primer" for #IndyRef2 / #ScotRef / #Neverendum depending on your own persuasion. Who may hold a referendum on independence? The legal power to hold an independence referendum is not explicitly addressed in UK constitutional law. However, given ...
A drone flight over this little-known Lincolnshire parish church and monastic ruin. I visited Crowland Abbey and the town's unique bridge back in 2009 - note the comment on Lincolnshire history from Simon Titley on the first post. And the tune accompanying the video puts me in mind of a comedy sketch I shall share with you presently.
There was a pro-Europe event today on the Gateshead Quays. EU supporters were there to demonstrate their support of Europe by waving flags. I was there to do the photos which you can see above.
Just to say that I know posts have been a little light recently. I'm currently dealing with... (thinks)... three, I think, family emergencies of various degrees of difficulty (the one that's by far the most serious is that my grandmother ... Continue reading →
The Liberal Democrats have discover that there are 10,000 happy people thanks to Lynne Featherstone's persistence in getting same sex marriage through. Watch her video on the subject;
Embed from Getty Images The Guardian reports that Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP who defeated Nigel Farage in Thanet South in 2015, was interviewed under caution for six hours by the police today. It was the part of the inquiry into whether the party overspent in the constituency at the last general election. The report goes on to quote an email from Karl McCartney, another Tory MP under investigation, who is helping his similarly place colleagues. In that email ("seen by Sky News") McCartney writes that his colleagues: "feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend ...
I left the Southport Foodbank and went to open a new Cookery School on the Dunningsbridge Rd. This project has been established by the Stedy Chef catering agency a business that is well established. It was a delight to meet the new trainee, young adults with learning difficulties, who have come from all over the region to sign up to the training on offer. The enthusiasm of the new recruits was infectious. They were already hard at work preparing a buffet when I arrived. Whilst they got on with the preparation I met some of the families and supporters of ...
When I suggested to Lord Bonkers that this entry deserves the annotation 'Huge if true', he snorted "What d'you mean 'if''?" I also mentioned that some of the attitudes displayed here are a little unfortunate, but he was equally dismissive. Tuesday It was the autumn of 1945 and I was relaxing at the Hall after being released from my war work (still hush hush, I am afraid) when there came a telephone call from Whitehall. It transpired that a strange orange hairy creature was haunting the Outer Hebrides and ravishing the local womenfolk. "That's a Scotsman," I replied shortly and ...
This week it was reported in the Times that President Reuven Rivlin of Israel had invited the Royal Family to send a representative to the country this year to celebrate a hundred years since the Balfour Declaration. There is intense speculation in the Israeli press now that the Royal Family might break its longstanding reluctance to visit Israel officially. It would clearly invite controversy to visit a country in such flagrant breach of international law - defying the United Nations with its illegal settlements, child detention, blockade of Gaza and marginalisation of its ethnic minorities. The Balfour Declaration, as well ...
Some of the many volunteers at Southport Foodbank I started my day with a visit to Southport Foodbank housed in a church down by the north end of the Marine Lake. This is a major voluntary effort and draws its support from across the community. The churches play a significant role in collecting food, recruiting volunteers and managing the project. Local supermarkets support the scheme and along with special events these three sectors provide most of the resources. But it doesn't stop there, schools, youth organisations and individual donations are important. On my visit I was told about the involvement ...
Saturday morning I was at Sacred Heart Church on Liverpool Rd Birkdale where along with their partner parish St John's Stone in Ainsdale (jointly known at HeartStone) they were working through their priorities for the next few years. The priest Father Slingo had invited Nugent charity to show case their local work: Margaret Roper House, Clumber House and Clarence High School. I shall be visiting all these projects in the near future. Nugent CEO Normandie Wragg introduced each project in turn and after lunch the parishioners committed to working alongside the charity. More about my visits to these projects later ...
Every time I remember when I'm in the supermarket, I try to buy a packet of sanitary towels to stick in the food bank donations trolley because I know how difficult it is for women facing poverty to deal with the additional cost that periods bring. The BBC reports this week that girls are missing school because they can't afford sanitary protection. Girls in the UK are missing school because they cannot afford sanitary protection, a charity has said. Freedom4Girls was contacted by a school in Leeds after it became concerned about teenage girls' attendance. The group provides sanitary products ...
Tom Standage's book, Writing on the wall: Social media - the first 2,000 years, has at its heart one good magazine-length article.
With snap election candidacy expiring at the end of May, the selections for 2020 are drawing ever closer. Returning Officers [RO's] are the little known but crucial role to enable this. They're the link that makes open selections possible and the more we have now the faster we'll be able to get a full slate of candidates in place for 2020. The good news is you can help enable a swift timetable of selections by training to be an RO as early as April via a two day training session run over Easter weekend. There's also a great introductory session ...
The weekend's media was full of reports of bitter disputes between No 10 Downing Street and The Treasury. Hitherto buried tensions have surfaced publicly, following the Chancellor's NI debacle. Hard Brexiters, we learn, want to see Hammond off and have him replaced by one of their own. The Tory party is as split on Europe as ever it was. It is up to us to exploit those divisions. It is up to us to remind the public that the ruling party is a split party. Split on EU policy, economic policy, foreign policy and social policy. In the very near ...
In September 2014, you could well be expected to have thought that it was all over. The "no" vote to independence - including mine - was 55%, the SNP broadly accepted the result, and it looked like there was no way the Tories would win an overall majority in 2015, effectively ruling out an EU referendum. How things have changed. In 2014, I started the referendum relatively open-minded but leaning towards a "no", but by the end (and having been firmly put off the idea by Alex Salmond) I was quite firmly in the "no" camp. But in my head ...
tw: suicide stats I'm very - perhaps too - fond of asking why people so rarely look at their actions in the context of "what happens next?" As Peter Cook might have asked, did A Question Of Sport die in vain? Back when the same-sex marriage bill was wending its way through parliament, we heard many arguments for and against. Some were coherent. Some were respectable. There's a fun venn diagram to be drawn of which were one, neither or both. Now, I've just been reading some research from the USA looking at the impacts of same-sex marriage legislation there, ...
This may well interest those of you with a thirst for knowledge about the blue half of Liverpool. The leaflet was picked up by Sheila at Liverpool Central Library for Phil Holden, a die-hard Blues chum of ours but I thought it worthy of wider circulation. So here it is:- Click on the scanned pages above to be able to read them. My shot of Goodison Park from a high vantage point in Bootle.
Bristol and Bath must be the two cities with the worst local rail services. Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow and so many others have amazing suburban train services. Cities like Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield have tram networks as well. All that Bristol has is the Severn Beach Line, serving the west and north west of the [...]
The Liberal Democrats have criticised local MP Amber Rudd and the Conservative Government for voting last night against the right of thousands of EU nationals in our area to stay, as a majority of MPs gave the final go-ahead to a hard Brexit. There are 3,589 residents from elsewhere in the EU living [...]
Liberal Democrat Press Release Gagged Again Liberal Democrats are furious that a legitimate motion to council, calling for the sacking of Teaching Assistants to be scrapped rather than just suspended, has been removed from the next council meeting agenda on the instructions of the council's chief legal officer. In what he perceives as a thinly veiled political message to Councillor Temple who had submitted the motion, the chief legal officer refers to both up-coming council elections and the completely reprehensible death threats that have recently been directed towards some councillors as reasons for preventing the subject of Teaching Assistants from ...
The votes took place, the Lords conceded... And then the murders began... But seriously (and apologies to readers, but I felt that I ought to test a theory that's doing the rounds), we have reached the point of no return. Well, actually, we haven't, but that's another story. Let's just assume that we have for the time being. What happens next? Of course, Theresa May formally notifies the invocation of Article 50 and negotiations for our departure commence. The EU Council meets to consider its negotiating stance, bringing together the divergent views of twenty-seven nations, all with their own red ...
Nick Clegg, blistering in the Standard, warns that the government is condemned to break its Brexit promises. Recalling promises of a stronger trading position, the continuation of the benefits of membership, no hard border with Ireland (never mind Scotland), less red tape, taking back control – never mind the £350 million; Nick warns of an impending reckoning. It is one of the most intriguing paradoxes of this government: its dominance of British politics is secure yet it acts with nervous insecurity; it possesses unrivalled strength yet it feels much weaker than it seems. ... of all the possible Brexit scenarios ...
Tue 14th
11:40
On what could happen if George Galloway jumps into the Manchester Gorton by-election...
All bets as they say would be off. I am on the record elsewhere as saying I think the Lib Dems will end up at around 3/1 to make the impossible possible and take one of Labour's safest seats away from them. It would be one of the most sensational by-election swing in modern political history but as it stands they'll probably fall short. Yet if George Galloway decides he wants to muddy the waters... In a piece entitled George Galloway may enter race to become Gorton MP in the Guardian over the weekend, a 'source close to George Galloway' ...
Tue 14th
11:24
It's been a weirdly depressing week for both May and Corbyn already.....and for democracy admirers a...
Yesterday should have been a triumphant one for Theresa May, given the Brexit Bill passed without a single amendment – but she bizarrely decided to give it a downbeat twist. Free to trigger Article 50 this week, she has decided to hold off until the end of the month for no clear reason. The only one that seems to make sense – and seems almost certainly likely – is that she did not want to trigger article 50 mere days after Sturgeon's indy ref 2 speech. This was silly for numerous reasons. One, this is gifting Sturgeon a moral victory. ...
The pitch which the Leave campaign successfully made to the poorest 10% of UK citizens in last June's EU Referendum was that their problems of low pay, insecure jobs and waiting lists for affordable housing were all due to competition from immigrants, and would be eased by leaving the EU. The budget, with little on social housing and less on funds for schools or other public services in deprived areas, has made their situation worse, rather than better. Labour has been hesitating about how far to buy into their grievances about immigrants. How should Liberal Democrats respond to their resentments ...
More comedy genius from Australia's Clarke and Dawe with Mr Xavier Breth, Online News Director.
Dear House of Commons, This evening, I have heard that you voted in a majority to be a place where the unrepresented are being devalued and brushed aside like piece of dirt on your suit. You, the country of one of the first parliamentary democracies who gave a voice to the people you represent. You, who decided that the absolute monarchy and aristocracy were unfair and a voice should be given to everyone. You just tarnished the name of democracy and multiculturalism. EU expatriates might be your friends, your neighbours, the ones who serve your coffee in the morning before ...
Must read (fairly short) article on truth in today's world Margaret Atwood on What 'The Handmaid's Tale' Means in the Age of Trump This article is a (horrifying, terrifying) beautiful pearl of wisdom. I hope she's right in the last couple of paras. The Insider's blog: Steve Uncles found guilty Something for those of us who have been blogging since before the word "blogging" was coined to celebrate, here. I don't know any of us Ancient Ones who didn't have some sort of skirmish with this tosser. Also, though, noteworthy for precedent for what might happen to Paul Nuttalls of ...
Those of us who predicted that a vote to leave the EU could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom are not exactly jumping up and down shouting 'I told you so' this morning as Nicola Sturgeon uses Theresa May's intransigence as an excuse for yet another Scottish independence referendum. The First Minister of Scotland seems to believe that the prospect of an independent Scotland remaining within the EU will entice more people to support separating Scotland from the rest of the UK. However, all the signs are that the prospect of the Scots being allowed to go it ...
Now that the invocation of Article 50 is imminent, I thought I would reflect on how we managed, as a country, to gain such momentum for such a bad way of leaving the EU. Firstly, it should be understood that before Article 50 was agreed, it was not impossible to leave the EU. Greenland did so, by agreement, and without that agreement being subject to an arbitrary one-sided deadline. The point of agreeing Article 50 was not to make it possible to leave, but to make it harder. Article 50, like Trident, is not meant to be used; that is ...
Advance warning of letters that will soon be received by 9,000 residents across Bury who will be seeing a reduced level of Council Tax support from 1 April 2017. As a result of constant financial pressures by local councils like Bury, the amount of reduced Council Tax that the Council can offer to people on low incomes is reducing. In the new system everyone will be asked to pay something, but there remains significant discounts for people on very low incomes. The Council can help spread the cost of bills, by setting up a Direct Debit or standing order. They ...
Three young people from Prestwich have topped the poll in the elections for Bury's reps to the national 'Youth Parliament'. Students across Bury (aged 11-18), had ten candidates to choose from with 7,403 young people voting. Numair Khalid of Parrenthorn High School was elected as Bury's Member of the Youth Parliament (MYP) with 1,459 votes, and his two deputies will be Viktoria Ouomble from St Monica's High School (932 votes) and Bethanie Mortenson from Prestwich Arts College (912 votes). A clean sweep for Prestwich schools! Well done to all the young people involved.
Self-Care for All – 22 March, 10am - 5pm – Elizabethan Suite, Bury Town Hall Seminars throughout the day include: 10.15 - 11.15 Mindfulness 11.30 - 12.30 Support to move into employment 13.15 - 14.15 Monitoring your own emotional health and well-being 14.30 - 15.30 Being the Parent of an anxious child For more information contact: admin@firstpointsupport.org.uk 0161 641 4585 www.firstpointsupport.org.uk
Two free workshops aimed at people who are thinking of switching energy providers are being held at local libraries later this month. The workshops ar for people who want to find out how to shop around to reduce your energy costs, and locate where you can go for help if you are struggling with your bills. The event in Prestwich is at the Library 29 March 2017 10.00-11.30.
It is likely to be a several weeks before the Co-op returns to early morning opening - at 6am Monday to Saturday and 7am on Sunday. Current planning permission for the store restricts opening time to 7am, 8am on Sunday. Midcounties Co-op will need to apply for new planning permission before the opening hours can be extended. It is pretty unbelievable that Midcounties Co-op did not know it needed planning permission to extend its hours. This sudden restriction of hours has created real confusion in the mornings. Motorists are queuing up to fuel their cars well before the petrol filling ...
InFacts UK shouldn't have a problem with WTO post-Brexit Sane analysis from an expert (@guruover75). (tags: eu brexit ukpolitics ) Here's what happened when I asked every TD in Ireland if they liked Beyoncé 37 of them replied. (tags: ireland beyonce music )
From over on my Facebook Page. On the morning of the 24th June last year, as I lay in my tent at Glastonbury in shock at the referendum result, I thought to myself: "there goes the union".No, not the EU - it will survive in some form without us - but the UK.Today we could have seen what could prove to be another significant step on the road to the break-up of this sceptred isle (or these sceptred isles, to include Northern Ireland in the equation).Back then, in the midst of my despair, I said I would prefer a Scotland ...
