My PhD supervisor, Prof Adam Tomkins, is the John Millar Chair of Public Law and a Conservative MSP for Glasgow. We disagree on many things. One of the things we quite radically disagree on is the proper function of referendums in the British constitution: especially secession referendums. This disagreement can be illustrated in part by a recent statement he made on Twitter. Today the Scottish Parliament, with the support of the MSPs from the minority SNP Scottish Government and those of the Scottish Green Party, voted by a majority of 69 to 59 in favour of a motion. That motion ...
Tue 28th
22:29
A lesson from Obamacare for Brexit: details of abolition can make something much more popular
For years the American public disapproved of Obamacare. Until the details of abolishing it started being assembled. Then public opinion moved sharply. A lesson perhaps for Brexit...
It was never going to be any other day, but the writ for the Manchester Gorton by-eleciton has now been moved and the poll will take place on 4th May. Lib Dem candidate Jackie Pearcey had this to say on Twitter: Not exactly a secret BUT Byelection will take place on Thursday, May 4th. We've been at it for weeks though and ready to beat Labour! — Jackie4MP (@JackieP4MP) March 28, 2017 Tim Farron sent members an email asking them for money to boost Jackie's campaign. He said: We've already been hard at work for weeks, and we now have ...
With thanks to Louis Barfe on Twitter.
Tue 28th
20:29
Shrewsbury conman who faked life as international showjumper left victim to 'survive on pasta'
The Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award. The story below turns out not to be funny, but then that is true of many of these superficially amusing headlines.
Who's Eve, I hear you ask? Well, for me, as an ardent pro EU supporter, tonight feels a bit like Christmas Eve when you know that somehow you have found your way on to the Naughty List and all that's going to be in your stocking in the morning is a lump of coal. For those Leave voters who were duped into thinking that everything was going to be hunky dory if we could just get rid of that pesky EU, the reality may well prove far worse than that. One thing is for sure. The Brexiteers will be held ...
I previously noted the bad news for Conservative MPs in the Electoral Commission's recent report which led to a record fine being levied in the party. That report clearly pointed towards numerous Conservative MPs having broken their constituency expense limits. Enforcing such constituency limits is essentially a matter for the police rather than the Electoral Commission, which is why the Commission did not go further on the issue in its report. The police, however, are very much going further: The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had received a file from West Midlands Police – the 13th police to do ...
Embed from Getty Images Tim Farron has given a characteristically frank, even ingenuous, interview to the Evening Standard. As a veteran (I almost wrote survivor) of the Alliance years, I was particularly interested in these comments: Labour friends keep inviting Farron to see Limehouse, the new Donmar Warehouse play about the formation of the SDP. Perhaps remembering that struggle, no Labour MPs have asked to defect yet. "Much as I love them, they're all generals without armies, and I'm interested in armies. At this time when anything can happen, why couldn't the best thing happen? That's the Lib-Dems taking their ...
Tue 28th
18:35
Sparks fly as Newbury's Sterling Cables Tower is brought down bit by bit...with no Fred Dibnah momen...
With a little tweaking from Photomatix and Picasa, my photo above shows work happening this morning at the very top of Newbury's Sterling Cables Tower. I've been keeping an eye on the work on the site everyday for months now. I have enormous admiration for the skill and hard graft of the workers doing the ... Continue reading Sparks fly as Newbury's Sterling Cables Tower is brought down bit by bit...with no Fred Dibnah moment
Here is our latest round-up of local news and what your ward councillors have been up to: Ward News Faulty speed sign We reported the faulty speed sign on Stafford Road that was somewhat erratic in its speed measurements. We are advised that this sign will be replaced in the next couple of months. Car [...]
Eight states of the USA have already legalised cannabis and Canada is set to follow suit in 2018. The Liberal government. elected in 2015, had a manifesto commitment to do so. Unlike the pledge to scrap first past the post and introduce a new electoral system, it is a promise that looks set to be kept. There are various arguments for legal cannabis. First, it has been shown to be an effective pain killer, for example for MS patients, and may ease symptoms of conditions like Parkinsons. It is cruel and unfair to deny patients access. Second, it is a ...
Oh what could have been... I didn't watch last nights Question Time Brexit Special because well, I tend to not watch Question Time in general but also a mate popped over to catch up. In fact in the past five years I've only seen one regular episode (when it was from Portsmouth after the government had given the two new aircraft carriers to a Scottish dockyard) but anyway I digress. I woke up this morning and was scrolling through my time line. One thing struck me (apart from a fellow SIAD grad and a football commentator reminding me of the ...
If you haven't read Matt's article about how the changes to Personal Independence Payments will affect him, then please do so. Last night, the amazing Liberal Democrat peers did their best to try and stop the Government's plans in their tracks. They filed a fatal motion which, like the one that saw off the fatal changes to tax credits, would have forced the Government to think again. What they needed was the support of the Labour Party. However, as we know from Brexit, Labour don't seem to be up for providing any opposition that actually means anything. Did they vote ...
When Gerald Kaufmann passed away, and we knew there would be a by election in Manchester Gorton, the odds given on a Lib Dem Victory were 7:1. 48 hours later they had drifted, out to 10:1 In itself these odds seemed slightly mean as we came 5th in the seat in the 2015 General Election. And Kaufmann took over 67% of the vote. Making a victory v. unlikely. Although this hides the fact that in '97, '01, '05 and '10 we'd come consistently second. Today, the odds on us winning have dropped to just 4:1 This isn't because the bookies ...
I had an enjoyable trip down to Prescot this morning to see Carl Cashman, the Lib Dem candidate to become Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, launch his manifesto. The venue was packed out and I only just managed to squeeze in. Some great green policies and a realistic approach to housing need too. First time I have heard a senior politician acknowledge that environmental, planning and housing policy needs to be joined up rather than the present daft system where they are not joined up at all. Carl's backing for a tidal lagoon off Southport to produce clean energy ...
The Party conference may be over, but whether you got there or not, there is still a chance to make an input into policy. There are four policy consultation papers inviting your comments with a deadline of this Friday. These are each likely to come to a future conference as a full policy paper. Given that it is pretty hard for ordinary members to change much if anything in a policy paper from the floor of conference, this may be your best chance to influence policy. The papers can be found here. I could have tried to offer neutral summaries ...
Last week there was an attack on Westminster. I've held off writing about this for a little longer than usual because I didn't want what I wrote to be a knee-jerk reaction, and I wanted to reflect personally before putting my thoughts out into the public realm. I wasn't involved personally, although I know people who were and they are dealing with what they saw in their own way. People were hurt. People died. My heart breaks for the families of those people who left their homes that morning and will not return. I can't even imagine how they felt, ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39399390 The BBC has the story on its web site – see link above Well if anyone could trump Keir Starmer's bizarre Brexit demands (after Labour had walked through the Hard Brexit lobby with our appalling right wing Tory Government) then maybe the Prime Minister was the one to give it her best shot. And give it a shot she did to an audience of civil servants who have to do what the government of the day tells them to do! So who is the most out of touch Keir or Teresa? Well it's pretty much a dead heat in ...
Tue 28th
11:17
Changes to Disability Benefits and the Government's blasé attitude to psychological distress.
Last month the Government announced that it was going to be tightening the criteria for claimants of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) which would see those people with mental illnesses stuck without the vital support that they need. The Government has introduced these restrictions after losing two cases at tribunals. The Tribunal ruled that someone who is unable to undertake a journey without assistance from another person due to psychological distress should be scored in the same way as a person who needs assistance because they have difficulty navigating. Rather than accepting the ruling of the courts, the Government decided to ...
There are many things to lament in regards to Corbyn's stewardship of Labour. The destruction of the possibility that any party other than the Conservatives will be able to win a general election for the next generation, for instance, and all of the problems that brings (for the Conservatives as much as anyone else). But this is what I feel is the saddest: all those thousands of young people who got interested in politics who will are being turned off it now, and the thousands to come when it sets in that Corbyn is set to lose big time. 6,450 ...
What do you believe, at the heart of everything? Ask most people about that and they wouldn't be able to tell you. I'm not sure I can tell you myself. It shifts with the weather; it modifies itself according partly to who I most disagree with. On the other hand, people want to know what political parties think. Whatever they might say about wanting reasonable politicians, it isn't at all clear that they want political parties that are a little bit of this and a little bit of that... This is the dilemma of the 'core vote strategy' that is ...
What's the issue? Despite millions being spent to "improve" the city centre of Peterborough over the last ten years, and several generic branded outlets opening up, many people in the city, still feel that the night time economy is rather failing? Now it seems the City Council agree! What's been said? The local authority recently [...]
You can read part 1 here. You were up against a well-supported, well-known and well-funded opponent in Zac Goldsmith, how did you win? I was very lucky. I won't deny it. I had the full Lib Dem by-election machine behind me. Because we thought we could win, they decided to really go for it. I had a group of people who knew what they were doing. They built a fabulous team and mobilised all those volunteers. I was very fortunate to have that support. We were also able to fundraise. This was important, as we managed to neutralise Zac Goldsmith's ...
I've been trawling through the YouTube archives, and came across this excellent Party Political Broadcast by John Cleese for the SDP/Liberal Alliance. So many of the arguements that John Cleese made in 1987 are still relevant today.
Residents will now be receiving polling cards for an extra election this year. Voters across Greater Manchester will be asked to vote for the first elected 'Mayor of Greater Manchester'. Voting takes place on Thursday 4 May 2017. If you don't already have a postal vote but would like one, you can download form here. If you're not registered to vote then you can find out how here. People who already have postal votes will be sent postal votes for the Mayoral Election in late April 2017. The 'Greater Manchester Elects' website has basic information about the election. The Liberal ...
When I was first elected to the Welsh Assembly in 1999 and became the Deputy Minister for Local Government the year afterwards, I recall the many meetings that took place around the local government settlement. In particular there was a paper produced by the WLGA which set out precisely how much it would cost to fix all the problems in local government, which they treated as a bidding document. The paper identified hundreds of millions of pounds that needed to be spent bringing our roads up to scratch, dealing with the backlog in housing repairs, sorting out council buildings, street ...
First Manchester have done a bit a 'U-Turn' with their closure of the Bury Bus Depot on 23 April 2017. Previously First had said that there would be no changes to services, but now the media are reporting that up to 20 services will be affected. The changes particularly affect early morning services from Bury, which will affect people who rely on these services, particularly for early start jobs. The main impact to Prestwich will be on the 95 service, which will see early morning services start and finish in Prestwich rather than running through from/to Bury. The changes are ...
If you know an individual or community group that is making an outstanding contribution to a community in our borough, please show your appreciation by nominating them for an award from the following categories: · Outstanding Contribution to a Township · Young Person or Young Persons' Group · Volunteer of the Year This year there is also a VOTE for the 'Best Community Project funded by the Township Forum'. The deadline for nominations is 14 April 2017, find out more here.
GMATL (Greater Manchester Accessible Transport Ltd) operates the Ring and Ride service in Greater Manchester. They are holding a number of drop in surgeries in all districts during April. The date for Bury is Wednesday 5th April 17 at Mosses Community Centre Cecil Street, Bury Bl9 0SB – 10.00 – 11.30. The full list of dates is below in case other dates or locations are more convenient for people.
The Prestwich based mental health charity, the Creative Living Centre, are gathering information on the possibility of extending the service they currently offer. They're asking us to answer just three questions – the survey is here.
Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage In America Race and class and history. (tags: uspolitics ushealth ) What the war on terror looks like What's really happening in Iraq. (tags: iraq ) How to manage Brexit More sense from @AndrewDuffEU. (tags: brexit ukpolitics eu ) Brexit reinforces Britain's imperial amnesia Great @gideonrachman piece (if you can get past paywall). (tags: brexit ukpolitics eu ) Justice evades Slovenia's 'erased' citizens A stain on Slovenia's past and present. (tags: humanrights slovenia )
