Hooray! Yesterday I finished delivering Focus in the last patch I had to do in Whickham. It was in Whickham North ward. A check of our deliverers revealed that delivery of this edition is now completed. Job done...until the next edition, on which I happen to be working now.
The Widow's Pension is designed to help create security and safety for families when they lose a loved one. But this week it is under attack from a new wave of Government cuts. With less money being paid to widows, widowers and surviving civil partners from April 2017 onward. The changes will only effect those families who lose a loved one after 6 April 2017. The new rules will add pressure to families when they're struggling the most. Families who've just lost a parent are learning to cope on a single income and with one fewer parent. The previous system ...
As its Signalling Record Society page says, Knaresborough signal box is one of the few that was added to the end of an existing terrace. I took this photograph in, I think, 1981. I remember going for a walk in the area and being pleased to come across a village called Follifoot. The box looks little changed today. The Signal Box has a picture of the small frame to be found within.
Gillian Mawson, author of Britain's Wartime Evacuees, on a fascinating episode in British social history. Most of Britain's wartime 'foster parents' have passed away, but their relatives are eager to share family stories and letters. Margaret Nolan's family offered a home to two evacuees in Lancashire: "Norman and Ronnie arrived with nothing, no pyjamas or anything. We took them to Bury Market and bought them pyjamas and a suit. They had no idea about setting a table or anything which surprised us as they had come from a family. "One Sunday we decided to take them to visit their home. ...
Labour has won a seat uncontested in St Edmundsbury after Ukip's nomination papers were ruled out due to a fatal legal error: not getting the party name/description right. Political parties are allowed to register more than one variation of their name, and then choose which one of the range to use on the ballot paper next to a specific candidate's name. However, the paperwork for this must be filled in exactly, down to the very last letter. Saying you want to be 'Liberal Democrats' in one part of the paperwork but 'Liberal Democrat' in another, for example, invalidates the paperwork. ...
A Conservative candidate in the Cornwall Council elections has apologised for her activities on social media and deleted her Twitter account. Jan Allen, who is standing in Truro, repeatedly shared tweets from the founder of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson... Sarah Newton, the Conservative MP who has endorsed Mrs Allen's campaign, declined to comment. [BBC] In addition to the problem with sharing unpleasant views in the first place, it also says something pretty poor about someone's judgement if they only realise there might be a problem with such behaviour after the media starts asking them about it.
With less than a month to go to the local elections, Shropshire Conservatives have withdrawn the printed edition of their election manifesto (it's still here online). This follows my discovery that an image that purported to be of Conservative supporters was lifted without permission from an Australian charity website. The image shows the staff of a mental health charity from Tasmania and Queensland. It is a typical workplace photograph and was taken on 28 June 2013. The BBC is reporting that the Conservatives have now formally apologised to the charity and have promised to no longer distribute the leaflet. I ...
A great charity is trying to make London a greener place to live, work and study. The idea is to use U National Park methodologies to promote the greening of our great city. To make it happen they need to get two-thirds of london councillors to support them scheme. If they dontreach this target by Summer 2018 they have to start again after new local election for London. As you can imagine Lib Dem councillors are fully signed-up to support this. Both Cllr Rosie Shimell and myself pledged our support several years ago as East Dulwich councillors when we first ...
Writing for the Guardian, Tim Farron says Boris Johnson has been humiliated. Tim writes that the discussion at the G7 summit needed to be about "no-fly zones, safe corridors and gaining the cooperation of regional powers". Instead we got "the Boris circus show": Lots of table-thumping beforehand about how he was going to deliver sanctions ("We are the exact opposite of poodles," his spin doctors briefed, a little hysterically), followed by that familiar quizzical expression at the post-summit photo call when he had delivered precisely nothing. Even fellow Conservative ministers have said, helpfully, that he has been humiliated, while No ...
When I visited Bosworth Hall in Market Bosworth - there it is above - I wrote: The Dixie family fortune was lost in the 19th century, and the house and estate were sold in the 1880s to pay gambling debts. After the estate had changed hands a few times, it was bought by Leicestershire County Council and became a hospital - Bosworth Park Infirmary - in 1931. When the hospital closed in the 1980s, it was converted in the Bosworth Hall Hotel.What I didn't is that the great guitarist Davey Graham was born at Bosworth Park Infirmary. There is even ...
Now this is an odd story and I am not sure that I have all nuances of it, but here goes anyway with corrections and updates as they come to my or indeed your attention. The story seems to start about 3 weeks back when the sign below started to appear in the car park of Maghull Town Hall on a Tuesday morning:- The car parking at Meadows Leisure Leisure Centre and Maghull Town Hall can be rather tight at times, with there being more cars trying to park than there are spaces available. This space shortage leads to cars ...
Embed from Getty Images Wayne Chadburn's post yesterday afternoon asked a question that the Liberal Democrats may have answered and agreed on nationally - that the majority of Lib Dems oppose Brexit - but it is a question that is still of huge regional significance. And national electoral success is won regionally, seat by seat. Significantly, the proposed boundary changes - if recommended next year in their current form - would move parts of the current Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency in South Yorkshire (where Wayne Chadburn is based) into Sheffield Hallam, Nick Clegg's patch. When moving to Sheffield in late ...
Here in Greater Manchester we're one of the six English subregions electing new supermayors, alongside places like Liverpool City Region and a sprawling mass of Yorkshire and Derbyshire around Sheffield. You get to exercise two preference votes in this, so you get to pick two parties or two individuals, but one preference is a dead simple decision - because Jane Brophy's standing. While I get to ponder who to give my other vote to, for one preference, it's payback: more than 20 years ago Jane stood alone in Trafford against Labour and Tory homophobia, indeed the other day I found ...
You couldn't make this story up. If it hasn't already arrived, you might soon be getting a copy of the Shropshire Conservative manifesto through your letterbox. Most of us would think that the banner photograph on the front page of the manifesto is of thirteen Tory activists or supporters. But look carefully. It took me a while to spot what is wrong with the photograph. Then it clicked. After that light bulb moment, it took me just minutes to discover that the image is not of Shropshire supporters at all. Not even of Tory supporters. The photograph has been lifted ...
In 3 weeks most of the UK has a chance to vote in an election. The 2017 elections are a national opportunity to push back against hard Brexit. Unlike so much else that supporters and opponents of Brexit can cite as evidence of public support for their side, the success or failure of each side is measurable, public and real. On 4 May 2017 there are elections, in England for: · All 27 county councils in England, · 7 out of 55 unitary authorities in England, · 6 large regional mayors (covering several counties and cities each) and 2 city ...
Travel seems to be our theme for this week: theories moving across cultures, people moving across class boundaries, and capital cities...well...just moving. How French "Intellectuals" Ruined the West: Postmodernism and Its Impact, Explained by Helen Pluckrose (Areo) 'When I try, unsuccessfully, to squeeze a tennis ball into a wine bottle, I need not try several [...]
Embed from Getty Images In a typically passionate and knowledgeable intervention, ex-Royal Marine Paddy Ashdown has attacked cuts of 200 posts in his former fighting unit: In an unpredictable age, we need forces that are fast, flexible and mobile. That's what the Royal Marines do at a world-class level. To cut their numbers to fill a Naval manpower black hole is not just poor reward for their service over the last years, but a folly which plays fast and loose with the nation's defences. The Royal Marines have carried the greatest burden in the defence of our country over the ...
Brexit vote site may have been hacked, MPs say in report - BBC News That's the registration to vote site, not the actual vote. Becausse, in this country, we are sensible enough to still vote on bits of paper, which (while they aren't very technically exciting) have the benefit of not being easily hackable. miss_s_b | Quick Update (from which you'll be able to grasp why I was a bit internet-absent yesterday) jimhines | Odyssey Con, Frenkel, and Harassment In which Jim C Hines continues to me Made of Awesome Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes ...
For most of history and in most of the world, men have ruled the roost. All sorts of explanations have been put forward for that, ranging from men's physical strength to women's traditional obligations to bear and raise children. In the post-modern age, with its emphasis on gender equality, such "justifications" for patriarchal systems have [...]
Wed 12th
10:25
Why Manchester Gorton is so important for the Liberal Democrats: Liberal Democrat Newswire #91
Liberal Democrat Newswire #91 came out last week, with a special focus on the May elections: the by-election in Manchester Gorton and Lib Dem prospects in the council contests.
Embed from Getty Images Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Susan Kramer, has reacted to news from the Office for National Statistics that food prices saw the biggest increase for three years in the year to March: The Brexit squeeze of a falling pound and rising import costs is hitting families across Britain, with higher prices in the shops denting incomes and leaving us all poorer. This is deeply worrying news for our economy, which has been propped up by consumer spending. The Government must urgently act to reverse this growing squeeze on living standards. The best way to protect British consumers ...
What's this to do with? It's regarding a recent article in the Peterborough Telegraph, stuck away on page 20, on Julie Briggs, who had started as a social worker for Peterborough City Council (PCC) in 2011. If you did not read the article you might be surprised at some of her claims? Which included: "I [...]
- FCC report coming soon. Am currently sitting on m'friend Mary's spare bed in Surbiton having stopped over here after the meeting yesterday, tapping away on my new-to-me laptop, which I'm thinking of calling Ken (because it's very very red). - Prior to the FCC meeting yesterday I had a somewhat more informal meeting with one of the Shadowy Gay Men Who Secretly Rule The World, which was lots of fun (because he's lovely) and very useful (because we had some interesting exchanges of information now I've become Acting Chair of LGBT+ LDs). I now have pages and pages of ...
Being a Pompey fan has never been easy. The fun and enjoyment has often been drowned out by pain and misery but that doesn't stop a fan caring deeply about his or her team. I recall my first game in a wheelchair days after being in QA hospital to have surgery on my ankle. I remember the soup in a flask. I remember mum pushing the wheelchair along the uneven cobbles outside of the main entrance at Fratton Park. I also remember plenty of other memories. Coming back to score twice in injury time against Blackburn Rovers and feeling scared ...
It may or may not be true that history repeats itself. What is certainly true is that the world is a much dangerous place when it is led by men and women who do not understand the past and are unable to draw lessons from it. Even worse is those who try to make historical comparisons without actually knowing or understanding the events they are alluding to. Trump's spokesperson, Sean Spicer really put his foot in it yesterday when he claimed that unlike Assad, Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons: Comparing the Nazi leader with Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Spicer ...
Good Vibrations - The University in 1967 An exhibition by Archive Services and Museum Services in the Lamb Gallery, Tower Building, University of Dundee As the University of Dundee celebrates its 50th anniversary as an independent institution, this special exhibition explores what was going on in that pivotal year, both on campus and in the city as a whole. Using rarely seen photographs, documents, artworks and artefacts it describes the major developments in the University - its new buildings and departments, its pioneering research areas - as well as looking at what life was like as a student in Dundee ...
Wed 12th
07:42
UKIP may be dying - but could a viable opposition party emerge to the right of the Tories?
Douglas Carswell wrote in the Guardian yesterday about a party of opposition emerging to take the place of Labour – one that would ideologically be positioned to the right of the Conservatives. Of course, this being Douglas, the whole thing sounds like another libertarian fantasy; that the Left will suddenly collectively think somehow that socialism is bad and that liberalism can only exist in a state with 8% GDP to state spend ratio. That social democracy only really helps the bankers and not the "little people" who for reasons unknown never took the opportunities offered to them to become tech ...
Wed 12th
07:30
Welcome for temporary tree protection order for trees planted by residents on Sidney Road
Tracey Huffer, councillor for Ludlow East, is welcoming an application by Ludlow Town Council for a tree protection order on three trees on a green between Sidney Road and Charlton Rise in Ludlow. She is also asking for information about the planting of the trees, which are believed to have been paid for by local residents. Last October, one of the trees on the green was cut down without notice by Shropshire Housing Group (SHG). A second tree was saved after intervention by Tracey and the councillor for Ludlow North, Andy Boddington. At the time, SHG said its aim was ...
Pepsi Ad How and Why It Was Made A PR disaster, partially explained. (tags: publicrelations ) 'Disastrous response that made things worse': UK PR experts lay into United Airlines and its precarious CEO Rightly so. (tags: publicrelations unitedairlines ) Will London Fall? New York Times reflects. (tags: ukpolitics london eu brexit ) Power brokers in the Kremlin jostle to succeed Putin Who's next? (Apologies, FT paywall) (tags: russia )
