To add to their humour and Twitter skills, comes this praise from one of the country's most important political journalists: Lib Dems provide material at speed, they are creative, know their way around government, and work hard. From where I sit Lab minimal effort — Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) March 30, 2017
The deed is done. The letter is sent. Article 50 is triggered. And the EU has confirmed that we may still have a way back. My reading of the runes is that attitudes towards and against Brexit have hardened, and there's a good chunk of people who aren't closely aligned with either but would quite [...]
Optimists will be celebrating the absence of any contests without a Liberal Democrat candidate.
When I visited Oundle last summer I was taken with the derelict Riverside Inn. I did not pay as much attention to the town's former railway station, which is now a private house with new houses built around it. (It is the photo one from bottom in that post.) Back in 1973 or 1974, when I visited Oundle with my mother, the station stood empty and alone. I must have dragged her away from the town centre to see it. I have a clear memory of that day, but I have no memory of taking the photograph above half a ...
The virtual ink was barely dry on Geoff Crocker's harrowing piece about his son's PIP interview when a comment from Sarah Olney on the damning report by the Independent Reviewer of the PIP implementation, Paul Gary, popped into my inbox. The report is highly critical and outlines that the fundamentals are just not working. A key conclusion of the Review is that public trust in the fairness and consistency of PIP decisions is not currently being achieved, with high levels of disputed award decisions, many of them overturned at appeal My findings point to the need to build very considerably ...
You'll remember this post when Theresa May nicked the Lib Dem slogan from last years General Election? Well, yesterday in Parliament she said... Someone sign her up, quick....
There is a certain arrogance about naming a piece of legislation "great" before it is even enacted. The Government has today revealed how it will legislate to get rid of those pesky bits of European law that the Tories hate so much. You'll hear a lot about "Henry VIII powers." This is what the Parliament website says about them: The Government sometimes adds this provision to a Bill to enable the Government to repeal or amend it after it has become an Act of Parliament. The provision enables primary legislation to be amended or repealed by subordinate legislation with or ...
A new report by the House of Commons science and technology committee calls for a rethink of the relationship between scientists, media and the public Science and journalism don't always see eye to eye. Scientific accuracy is often sacrificed in the quest for an enticing headline, but at a time when fake news is on the rise, high quality scientific reporting has never been more essential. As the House of Commons science and technology select committee, which I chair, argues in its latest report, if the press is to maintain the public's trust, journalists must demonstrate their commitment to clear ...
Thu 30th
14:49
LibLink: Brian Paddick: If we value our national security, we will avoid a hard Brexit
A couple of days before Theresa May's ill-judged ultimatum in her Article 50 letter over trade and security, Brian Paddick wrote for the Guardian about how hard Brexit could damage our security. That's right. If Theresa May gets her way, we will be less safe. He started off by talking about last week's attack at Westminster in which 4 people, PC Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes and Kurt Cochran were murdered. How do we balance the need to keep Parliament accessible with the safety of those in and around it? That security must be balanced with an obligation to ...
What's this about then? Basically, in the City Council's recently published, and updated, Local Plan, they point out that: The River Nene is one of the city's most important assets but it currently fails to maximise its potential for leisure and is poorly connected to other parts of the city centre. So what can we [...]
Elaine Ford and Willie Rennie Good news from party HQ. It's barely 3 weeks since our membership reached 85,002, double our low point during the coalition years. Now, it's shot up again and has just gone over 87,000. While we have had 5000 new member since the beginning of February, Labour's membership, according to LabourList, is falling at the rate of almost 3000 members every week at the moment. Party President Sal Brinton welcomed the news. The clear message to this Government is we have not given up the fight against a hard Brexit, and thousands of people across the ...
Thu 30th
13:16
Formby – More on those tragedies that have happened where Fisherman's Path crosses the Liverpo...
I was recently able to pick up on what is going on or indeed not going on with regard to this notorious railway level crossing point where there have been a number of fatalities in recent times. Readers of this blog site and Sefton/Merseyside based newspapers will know that the fatal accidents have received a lot of publicity but must also be wondering why little is seemingly happening to make this crossing point safer? The ball seems to be firmly in Network Rail's court and my understanding is that their preference is to close the Fisherman's Path crossing point altogether. ...
Embed from Getty Images I have a feeling I have read this before somewhere, but in this week's New Statesman George Eaton reveals that: A week after the EU referendum, the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, was taken by surprise when a close ally of George Osborne approached him and suggested the creation of a new centrist party called "the Democrats" (the then chancellor had already pitched the idea to Labour MPs).Tim's response was surely the correct one: "I'm all ears and I'm very positive about working with people in other parties," Farron told me. But he said that the ...
I have had the pleasure of showing several groups around our Town Halls. First up were the students from Range High School Formby who came with their visitors from Germany. They were followed by the pupils from Waterloo Primary School. Their party was drawn from the School Council, Eco champions and anti-bullying leads. I always find that primary school youngsters are the most inquisitive. They ask the questions that come into their head. This makes for a much more interesting and challenging time. On Thursday evening I hosted the first civic reception for LGBT people in Bootle Town Hall. Members ...
In an earlier post, I wrote about the process of withdrawal of Disability Living Allowance and the requirement for disabled people to apply for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), as I experienced it in caring for my adult son Paul who has a condition known as Williams Syndrome. Several respondents shared similar stories, and urged our party to adopt a much stronger care policy for disabled people, so far to no avail. (I was by the way mistaken in my claim that all PIP application notices had been sent out over Christmas and New Year - it appears that a rolling ...
The Royal Hospital has enough problems with its own rebuild programme to be able to take over the servcies of LCH. It has few competences in community based health practice Liverpool's Lib Dem Leader, Cllr Richard Kemp, has asked the ... Continue reading →
Arthur Scargill, the old trade union boss, unexpectedly popped up in the news again yesterday. The reason being, he had given a pro-Brexit speech in which he said that leaving the EU would allow Britain to re-open the coal mines. "We were not allowed to subsidise pits under EU rules unless we were closing them - that's the kind of policies that were being dictated to us by the European Union." I can see how in the abstract, there is very much a hard left argument for Brexit being a great thing. The EU is very centrist in its approach ...
Thu 30th
11:10Newby: May's Brexit plan will make us poorer, less generous and diminished as a nation
Lib Dem Lords Leader Dick Newby threw some serious shade at the Government yesterday in his response to the Prime Minister's statement on Article 50 being triggered. He went through it and pointed out the many inconsistencies and false promises it contained. It's a cracker. Today is for me and my colleagues an extremely sad day. It marks the point at which the UK seeks to distance itself from its nearest neighbours at a time when, in every area of public policy, logic suggests that we should be working more closely together rather than less. But sadness is a passive ...
So, article 50 has been invoked and the more rapid, unthinking Brexiteers are talking about regaining our independence and taking back control. What a load of nonsense. However, what does 'taking back control' actually mean? Well according to the Independent, it involves a thousand laws being passed unilaterally and without parliamentary scrutiny when European law is transposed into British law under the Great Repeal Bill. The paper says that 'corrections' to EU laws will number between 800 and 1,000 and will be passed by statutory instrument, a legislative device that allows for laws to be made without a parliamentary vote. ...
I hadn't intended to post for another couple of weeks, but this article in the Financial Times is too good to miss. It tackles one of the central issues in modern economic debate: why productivity growth is so slow. Productivity lies at the heart of the conventional view of public policy – and yet it ... Continue reading Productivity statistics expose deep weaknesses in theoretical economics →
Thu 30th
09:04LibLink: Catherine Bearder - Dear Prime Minister - Playing Hard Ball On Brexit Will Only Weaken Brit...
Lib Dem MEP Catherine Bearder has been providing some advice to the prime minister over on the Huffington Post: Dear Prime Minister, This weekend I had the pleasure of joining the tens of thousands of people marching in London against your vision of a Britain after Brexit. A sun-soaked Parliament Square provided a brilliant back drop to what was also a celebration. As you know, this weekend marked the anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, and while we marched in London your European contemporaries met in Rome to mark 60 years of peace in the EU. Our celebrations in London ...
Having long campaigned for road surface improvements for Fort Street, I was pleased to be recently advised : "I have been advised that this road is to be upgraded in the near future either March or April 2017, subject to the continuation of current funding levels."
Three Things to Know About the Triggering of Article 50 l by me. (tags: ukpolitics brexit eu mymedia ) 70 days in, Donald Trump's presidency is flailing Brutal by @EzraKlein. (tags: uspolitics )
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