Built on the cheap and opened as late as 1892, the Hawkhurst Branch ran through the orchard and hop country of Kent. Plans for extensions to Tenterden, Appledore or Dungeness came to nothing and the line was thoroughly uneconomic when it closed in 1961. Wikipedia records the intriguing detail that: Elisabeth Beresford, who was subsequently well known as the creator of The Wombles, wrote a children's book Danger on the "Old Pull 'n Push" based on the Hawkhurst branch. Subsequently this was televised by Rediffusion for ITV in two six-part series The Old Pull 'n Push and Return of the ...
Embed from Getty Images John Rentoul has been down to Wells to meet Tessa Munt as she campaigns to win back the seat she lost two years ago: She won the seat in the first place by a remarkable voter-contact effort. With a clicker counter in her pocket, she says she spoke to 49,500 voters in the five years before the 2010 election. The day after she lost the seat in 2015, she was back out on the doorstep, talking to people and trying to win it back. She has been working for two years for an election in 2020: ...
This is going to be a short entry for today, because I've left it till quite late in the day before writing it and also there's not usually much in the way of election news on a Saturday. It's not quite the politico's day off (there are all sorts of doors to be knocked on) but there's a sense of everyone knowing that it's not a big day for watching the news. At the weekends, the Sunday papers and TV political show circuit are the most important thing and everyone's waiting to see what bombshells get dropped through those. I've ...
There are some fantastic, smiling action photos coming out from Lib Dem campaigners this weekend! Victor Chamberlain has been out twice, campaigning for Simon Hughes with colleagues at the Elephant and Castle: Great response on the doorstep this evening. Lots of people want @SimonHughes back as their MP around the Elephant #LibDemFightback pic.twitter.com/JN9YobeeCZ — Victor ... Continue reading #LibDemFightback campaigners busy on the streets this weekend
There are some fantastic, smiling action photos coming out from Lib Dem campaigners this weekend! Victor Chamberlain has been out twice, campaigning for Simon Hughes with colleagues at the Elephant and Castle: Great response on the doorstep this evening. Lots of people want @SimonHughes back as their MP around the Elephant #LibDemFightback pic.twitter.com/JN9YobeeCZ — Victor ChamberlaIN (@VMMChamberlain) April 28, 2017 ...and at Borough and Bankside: Great team out in Borough & Bankside. Huge support for @SimonHughes and @LibDems campaign against a hard #Brexit #LibDemFightback #ge2017 pic.twitter.com/pX3oYkjsyI — Victor ChamberlaIN (@VMMChamberlain) April 29, 2017 Tim Farron visited Leeds – and Leeds ...
A trip to Waterloo on the 133 bus was called for today so that Keith Page and I could enjoy what was on offer at Waterloo Beer Festival. Old Christ Church (no longer a functioning church) is a great place for all kinds of events but it was the first time I had been to a beer festival there. A great afternoon was has had checking out porters, dark ales and stouts.
Dear Mrs May, You called an election last week so that British voters can, you claim, by electing a large Conservative parliamentary majority, give you the "strongest hand" possible in the Brexit negotiations. But I am afraid Mrs May you have already decided on the direction you are taking this country in and I think you already know that. Today the leaders of the 27 EU countries will meet to finalise their negotiating guidelines, for what Guy Verhofstadt described to Liberal MEPs this week as probably the shortest Council meeting ever. Why? Because they are all are agreed on one ...
I'm a little short on money at the moment (not life-threateningly so, but I had to buy a new laptop this week while I've had less time for paid work recently because of election madness), and I'm also casting around ... Continue reading →
Very good, David Schneider: Theresa May's strategies for talking to ordinary voters. pic.twitter.com/co6U43fA3z — David Schneider (@davidschneider) April 29, 2017
This is what we delivered in Dunston Hill and Whickham East ward in the past week, the next edition of Focus. The lead story was the planning application for up to 582 executive homes on former greenbelt land at Dunston Hill. My Labour opponent, Liz Twist, is the council cabinet member for building houses on the countryside. I wonder if she will care to touch on this matter if she visits the
As previously tipped, Christine Jardine has been selected to fight the former Lib Dem seat of Edinburgh West.
Upvote: A new tech and politics podcast for the 2017 General Election From Ars Technica UK and Wired UK Brexit latest: GDP growth slumps to 0.3% in first quarter of 2017 The myth of Conservative economic competence writ large. mfu_canteen | The Agents' New York: Part 3 Reasons why DW is awesome: great big long tracts on the historical settings of TV shows (in this case, The Man From UNCLE), posted just in case someone might be interested (this is the 3rd part! The 1st one was about twice as long!) Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss ...
Nestle have announced 300 job losses and the moving of the production of Blue Riband from the UK to Poland. The Blue Conservatives, far from strengthening our hand in negotiations with Europe, are exporting our jobs there even before the Brexit negotiations have not begun. The decision to take the UK out of the Single Market was a calamitous mistake and the Tory chickens are coming home to roost
The UK has voted to leave the EU. That fact is undisputed. What happens next is up to the UK Government and, if they are given any say at all, Parliament and perhaps the people in a second referendum. There is no mandate though for a hard Brexit or indeed any outcome other than to leave the EU. During the referendum many assurances where given to voters including that leaving the EU would provide an additional £350m a week for the NHS and that we would still be part of the single market. Both of those promises look like they ...
On 29 April 1970 Chelsea won the FA Cup for the first time in their history by beating Leeds 2-1 in a replay at Old Trafford. This was the goal that brought the scores level and took the game into extra time. A sublime chip from Charlie Cooke and a diving header from Peter Osgood. Cooke was my hero. In that age before replica kits, all it took was for your Mum to sew a number 7 on the back of a blue shirt and you were him,
Welcome to the latest in my series of tips and advice for Liberal Democrat members, which appear first in the email bulletin run by London Region for party members. Connect is the electoral database program used by the Liberal Democrats. This is where we store the names and addresses of voters, along with data which we gather – such as what voters tell us on the doorstep when we are out campaigning. Connect is based on the NGPVAN technology which also powered Barack Obama's winning 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections and is used by our sister party, the Canadian Liberals, ...
[IMG: [community profile] ] fffc (Froday Fanfiction Challenge - named after Frodo Baggins, apparently, in case any of the rest of you have a slight discomfort over the name, like I momentarily did) are doing a fic challenege for May which is to write a single sentence fic. I can manage one sentence a day, right? And I used to fic loads. So maybe this is a softer way of getting back into it... This is the prompt table I have chosen - there are 3 to choose from - and I'm going to do Brig/Benton because I'm a big ...
Click on the photo to enlarge it I posted about this 'one way' Motorway junction back in March this year but did not have a photo of it at the time, so here's one now. What you are looking at is where you would expect there to be a slip road down onto the M58 to travel towards Switch Island. But of course there never has been one as you can only use this odd junction to travel east towards Skelmersdale or leave the M58 here if travelling west. This is in fact where the gated Giddygate Lane finishes presently ...
Sat 29th
08:45
Tim Farron commitment to end homelessness - reason to be proud, but also conscious of a great challe...
A party press release yesterday said: The Liberal Democrats have committed to ending the scandal of rough sleeping in Britain, as the Homelessness Reduction Bill enters into force today. Following a campaign visit to the Hundred Houses Society, a charitable housing association in Cambridge, Tim Farron announced a series of measures the party would put ... Continue reading Tim Farron commitment to end homelessness – reason to be proud, but also conscious of a great challenge
The latest Adult Learning newsletter for the city has just been published - covering the spring - and you can download it here. Here's details of the adult learning opportunities available in the West End area :
Jo Swinson was on Question Time on Thursday and she was fabulous. She really took on Tory minister Damian Green with pithy and sharp interventions. Here she is taking about the awful Rape Clause: .@joswinson says that the so called rape clause is evidence of a government moving in the wrong direction #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/GUQkMg2d2f — BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) April 27, 2017 And on hard Brexit: .@joswinson says that despite #GE2017 being called for the benefit of the Conservatives, it could also provide an opportunity for change pic.twitter.com/zlid69JLM4 — BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) April 27, 2017 You can watch the ...
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has made an audacious bid to replace Labour as the main opposition, in an interview with the i newspaper. Tim Farron said: "I want to be the leader of the opposition. Jeremy Corbyn is a perfectly nice man, but is demonstrably the worst leader in British political history in terms of effectiveness. "As things stand, a feeble Labour opposition will mean the
May orders large consignment of Dalmatians LOL (tags: funny ukpolitics ) Was a "soft" Brexit ever possible for the UK government? @JackOfKent: May's conference speech was crucial. (tags: eu ukpolitics brexit ) The Permanent Mission Of Yugoslavia in New York Amazing building - been there a few times! (tags: architecture )
John Shipley, Liberal Democrat housing spokesperson, said: "Labour has a guilty conscience about housing. It completely failed on house-building during its 13 years in government, selling off 470,000 council houses and adopting Margaret Thatcher's Right to Buy without replacing the homes they sold off. "Their announcement today is to build an extra 500,000 council homes, which is the same number as the number of council homes they sold off in Government. "You need a strong economy to increase house-building. Labour's policies are not credible and will not deliver the homes we need. "Labour voted for a hard Brexit, and that ...
Sat 29th
01:01
If you follow any #ActuallyAutistic people online, you may have seen some upset recently
This is because channel 4 are running a "How Autistic Are You?" test which is so cack-handed it would be laughable... if we didn't know that so-called experts are going to base things to do to us on it (why yes, Prof Baron-Cohen, I am thinking of you). So just what is wrong with this test?Before you even get to the test proper, it has several cock-ups on the demographics page. Under "sex" the options are "male", "female", "transgender" or "prefer not to say". Sex and gender are not the same thing and "transgender" is not a category any trans ...
BT were digging up my street this morning. They had 2 vehicles parked at the junction, on either sideof the road. No one could get in or out. I had a polite word with them about people needing to have access to the street. After a few minutes one of the vehicles was removed. I was able to drive down to the Watergate Estate in Whickham and deliver 370 focuses.
