One thing many readers don't seem to like it when I headline negative news about the Liberal Democrats not putting up candidates in council by-elections. But putting up candidates is a key part of being a political party, indeed the key distinguishing feature of being a political party and not a pressure group. It is also a necessary minimum when it comes to building up stronger, more durable party foundations on which we can construct future success. What's more, I'm sceptical that we really try as hard as we could to maximise the number of candidates we stand. When was ...
I remember Lincoln St Marks and its level crossing from 1978. In those days it was a stop for direct trains from King's Cross to Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and I can recall seeing a Deltic there on its way to London. There are no such services today, and any restoration of them sounds a long way off.
Here's the new film from the Liberal Democrats, featuring Manchester mother Andrea, who is voting Liberal Democrat to stop Hard Brexit.
The Southport Visiter has the story – see link above Above all else Southport hospital needs some stability after all the well documented senior management troubles of the recent past but clearly the Southport Visiter has its reservations. With thanks to Roy Connell for the lead to this posting.
"We should remember that Spice itself came into existence as an attempt to evade the ban on the far less harmful 'natural' cannabis. Thanks to prohibition, chemists were given an incentive to produce an alternative and they have come up with something much nastier." Matthew Scott explains why the government's drugs policy is failing. Joanna Bartley makes a traditionalist case against grammar schools: "If parents prefer academic schools then the very nature of selective education will disappoint many. Only a fixed percentage achieve their wish, the rest finding schools skewed towards the needs of lower ability pupils." An overabundance of ...
I have never got further into Skegness than the town's railway station, but one day I will visit this Lincolnshire resort where the working class of Leicester used to go for its holidays. Perhaps I will walk down to the nature reserve at Gibraltar point at gaze across the Wash to the more genteel North Norfolk coast. The New European has also been to Skegness, coming up with this illustration. If they were setting out to lend support the idea that European cause was a cause for metropolitan types who laugh at the rest of us while eating their artisan ...
The Bury Times is reporting today that the cabinet of Bury's Labour-controlled council met last night to rubber stamp a £10 million pound loan, to be repaid over forty years. The money will be used to fix potholes and resurface roads across the borough. Regular readers of my blog will know I have written often [...]
Empty thoughts – a dry river in the night: Of wanderers condemned to replay – and enjoy – a game whose rules are crossed so we can never win, but only hope, repeatedly forgetting the result. Mere humans and yet more: we, the godless, and our longing. Of our strange mistress – unkind, unsentimental, alien [...]
Less than two years ago I blogged here about how Bury's Labour-controlled council had planned to reduced the Township Forums across the borough from six meetings per year (on average, once every two months) to four meetings per year. They brought these changes in from January 2016 and just 15 months later the council are [...]
On of the functions of the central state is to re-direct funds from the wealthier parts of the country to the poorer parts. This is done in the UK by central government grants to local government. The intricacies of how these grants are calculated are beyond the comprehension of most of us, but it seems odd that, when these grants are reduced, as they have been over the past seven years as part of the government's misguided "austerity" policies, the biggest reductions are to the poorest areas and not to the richest. An article written a couple of years ago ...
Thu 13th
14:05
LibLink: Tim Farron - Government can't conduct Brexit talks like a hostage negotiation
Embed from Getty Images Tim Farron is getting a lot of visibility on a range of subjects at the moment. In the Guardian he writes about foreign policy in respect of Boris Johnson in an article entitled "Boris Johnson has been humiliated – his circus show isn't funny any more": And this is what Conservative Brexit ministers gloating and briefing against Johnson should realise: just as Johnson was humiliated at the G7, so Britain will be humiliated in Brexit negotiations if ministers go in firing off demands like a hostage negotiation. You simply can't have a good deal while demanding ...
The Western Mail and other Welsh media have recently been focussing on the amount of money local councils on this side of Offas Dyke pay to their senior executives. They say that 107 people in Wales enjoyed remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2015-16, compared to 105 a year earlier. Across the UK, more than 2,300 council employees earned above this threshold. Thirty people in Welsh councils had remuneration packages of more than £150,000, including four in Cardiff, three in Caerphilly and Wrexham, and two in Anglesey and Swansea. It is of course absolutely right that councils are scrutinised to ...
Local Liberal Democrats have questioned the cost of "Local Voice", a tabloid newspaper distributed throughout the county borough on behalf of Labour in the Neath Port Talbot local election campaign. We have independently costed such an eight-page tabloid which makes extensive use of colour photographs. We chose a supplier who would be at least competitive with Trinity Mirror in Birmingham who printed the Labour election material, and came up with a figure of £5,400. (Anything less than this would suggest a subsidy by Trinity Mirror, which would have to be declared on election expenses.) The question is: did every ward ...
Deutsche Welle reports: Canada is poised to become the first country in North America to legalize marijuana and other cannabis products for recreational purposes, a decision that has the support of a majority of Canadians. But experts say federal legislation, expected to be introduced later this week, is only the first step, and the implementation of a countrywide, legalized cannabis system will likely differ from coast to coast. "That framework legislation will empower the relevant ministers to pass regulation, and the regulation is really where the action happens," said Hugo Alves, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in the medical marijuana ...
Leeds rally against homophobia in Chechnya Put it in your diary, pls, people who can get there Instagram Photo: "Sometimes I have a very childish sense of humour" Instagram photo: "Am in Foyle's. I may never be seen again." Instagram photo: "Love this clock in The Parcel Yard" [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Thu 13th
10:56Australian charity workers or local Tory activists? Shropshire Tories struggle to tell the differenc...
This is from the "Department of You Couldn't Make It Up". With less than a month to go to the May local elections here in Shropshire, the county Conservative group has had to halt delivery of its election manifesto. This came after we discovered the image of local activists at the head of the manifesto was lifted from the website of an Australian mental health charity. All up elections for Shropshire unitary council will take place on 4 May. Postal votes arrive at the end of next week. All parties are pushing literature through letterboxes and knocking on doors. The ...
What's this about? Basically, since the Gunthorpe Primary School came under the newly created electoral ward of Gunthorpe last year, myself and colleagues have received constant complaints regarding poor parking in and around the area. As a result, the school has recently sent out this statement: "We are disappointed to have received a number of complaints from local residents regarding [...]
BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.
The new EFC stadium is not a done deal while major questions such as those I have asked below remain unanswered As readers of my blog will know I have asked a series of questions about the proposed move of ... Continue reading →
ALDC - the Lib Dem support organisation for councillors and campaigners which any member serious about campaigning should join - has now topped 3,000 members
The Conservative Party has lost its overall majority on Ryedale Council after the council leader, Linda Cowling, and five colleagues walked out of the party, becoming independents instead. The Conservative Party has hit back with allegations that their departure is connected to a failure to turn up at meetings and to voting irregularities. Three of the departing councillors had previously been suspended from the local Conservative Association: Thirsk & Malton Conservative Association has said it "regrets" the resignation of six of its members. A spokesperson said: "The Association very much regrets that some members of the Conservative group feel no ...
Residents have complained to be about litter on and beside the rail line as it passes Magdalen Green. I raised this with Network Rail and am promised it will be litter picked on 17th April.
This piece arises out of a comment I made on Facebook that one of Lib Dem Voice's founding editors asked me to write up as an article for LDV. I have given training on debate and hustings skills to candidates at the party conference and there are a couple of rules to help you in that I think Remainers and Liberals are continuing to paying insufficient heed to in Brexit related debates. This was brought home to me while watching recent episodes of Question Time and similar programmes. The first rule is framing. In a debate, the success of what ...
Southwark Labour have started the legal process to sell Southwark school Land at three locations.: 5,172m2 of playing fields at Angel Oak Academy (formerly Gloucester School) SE15 6FL 2,452m2 of plying fields Beormund Primary School SE1 3PS 1,078m2 Cherry Road Gardens School SE16 3XU That's a lot of school playing fields. Once lost impossible in Southwark to recreate o replace. They say they and will be used for housing. Also much needed. But the one thing we can sure of with an ever increasing Southwark population and huge home building plans is we will need more schools and often have ...
China Elevates `Good Cop' on Trade to Counter Trump Barbs The most important Chinese trad official you've never heard of. (tags: China ) Brexit Between The Rock and a Hard Place Rhetoric and negotiation. (tags: gibraltar brexit ukpolitics eu ) Kirk Drift Brilliant by @ehorakova on sex in Star Trek. (tags: trek sexandgenderandsexuality sf )
