I judge other politicians on whether they are pluralists or tribalists. Pluralists recognise that there are good people in all parties and in groups that operate outside party politics. Tribalists go beyond blinkered loyalty to their party, believing those not of their political colour to be the enemy, to be opposed at all costs. I [...]
I was having lunch at the Café Rouge in Kingsway, Camden, watching the rain outside when a May Day parade of trade unionists and socialists went past. I've always had a soft spot for trade union banners, some of which are truly beautiful, though my eyes nearly popped out when one particularly well-crafted banner went [...]
Individual constituency polls at general elections are fairly rarely things these days (pause for happy memories of Channel 4 in the 1987 general election) and Kensington (Conservative majority: 7,361 / 69% Remain vote / Conservative MP who backed Leave) isn't an obvious constituency to poll. But that's what has happened: Kensington constituency poll: CON: 46% (-6) LAB: 29% (-2) LDEM: 17% (+11) GRN: 7% (+2) (via Survation / 25-27 Apr) Chgs. w/ GE2015 result — Britain Elects (@britainelects) April 30, 2017
Wera Hobhouse has been selected to fight Bath for the Liberal Democrats. The candidate selected last year, Jay Risbridger, stepped down last week. The BBC has the story: Wera Hobhouse was selected by members during a lunchtime meeting at Bath City Football Club, The seat is currently held by the Conservative MP Ben Howlett but was previously a Lib Dem stronghold, held by Don Foster for 23 years. The original prospective parliamentary candidate, Jay Risbridger, picked last autumn, stood down last week due to family and work commitments. Paul Strasburger, from the Lib Dems's campaign in Bath, said: "It's important ...
Mon 1st
20:19
That May/Juncker dinner leak - what does it all mean and what has Tim Farron been saying about it?
So the May and Juncker dinner leak is all over the papers. "Brussels gossip" says the Prime Minister. What she didn't say was that it was untrue. A very useful summary of the main points appears here on The Economist's Jeremy Cliffe's Twitter feed. In essence, it sounds as though the Prime Minister has no clue about how Brexit is going to work. They don't even seem to understand the basics. That already puts our country at a significant disadvantage. If you are going to have to go into a negotiation like this, it helps if you understand what you ...
Embed from Getty Images Wales Online thinks it knows which seats the Liberal Democrats are targeting. Along with Ceredigion, which the party already holds, the targets are: Cardiff Central - the party lost this to Labour in 2015 by 4,921 votes but has won it before and gained back many of those votes in last year's Assembly election. Cardiff also voted heavily to Remain in the EU. Brecon and Radnorshire, which the party lost in 2015, although here it faces the challenge that the county of Powys backed Brexit.The paper quotes Profesoor Russell Deacon as saying the party has "a ...
What's this about then? According to the City Council's Environment Capital: Action Plan, they want a "pedestrian, public transport and cycle first city and 90% of all journeys will be zero emission." What does Darren think? I honestly don't think that the present Tories at the Town Hall give two hoots about realistically improving cycling in [...]
Prior to this interview, I obviously knew who Jo Swinson was and was aware of some of the issues she has championed over her 10 years in office but, while researching her, I was surprised to find that a relatively young politician had been actively involved in so many campaigns. Jo's avid use of social media combined with her willingness to openly and energetically support these causes has clearly enhanced her profile. Jo was one of the first politicians to take new and modem forms of technology seriously. She joined Twitter shortly after it went live and a simple YouTube ...
... I think we should be told. Someone in the Prime Minister's constituency is clearly desperate for policy ideas with substance, rather than the ridiculous "strong and stable" guff she's been spouting so far. While the Conservatives outrageously claim credit for Liberal Democrat achievements in government (for example, raising the personal tax allowance and same-sex marriage) this idea, I'm certain, ... The post Is Theresa May reading my blog for policy ideas? appeared first on ten pence piece.
Liberal Democrat Newswire #93 looks at the Liberal Democrat prospects in the general election.
Earlier today, the Liberal Democrats selected a new candidate in Bath, where ex-MP Don Foster has since gone to the House of Lords and the previously selected candidate had to pull out: Delighted that @Wera_Hobhouse has been selected as @LibDems MP candidate for Bath. Onwards to victories on 4 May and 8 June! pic.twitter.com/RMvk2ljXQ2 — Stephen Williams (@swilliamsmp) May 1, 2017
For anyone who might know... I bought a laptop from Amazon last week, which (as all laptops do because monopolies) had Windows 10 installed on it. I did the usual fiddling with the UEFI and BIOS to allow it to ... Continue reading →
Squeezed by the BBC on one side and Wiktribune on the other, things could be about to get even tougher for many UK news outlets.
On the day of the 1997 election itself I was in Graz, Austria, buying furniture for our office in Bosnia. Anne was still (heavily pregnant) in Belfast. Even in Austria, CNN and Sky News were available so I was able to help an American colleague follow what was going on - the extraordinary thing was not just the huge scale of the Labour victory, but also the Lib Dems winning more seats, despite the lower vote. And then I woke up in the morning with this odd memory of a dream that Anne had phoned me in the very small ...
Vodafone recently put in notification of their intention to put a telecom mast and large cabinets on Woodcote Green, next to the air raid shelter. Not only would this be an eyesore on a beautiful village green opposite Wallington Girls School, it was right where local residents had asked the Local Committee to locate a [...]
Around 300 people braved the drizzle this morning in Surbiton, west London, to welcome the Liberal Democrat battle bus as it embarks on a tour of the country ahead of next month's election. Party leader Tim Farron was joined by Sarah Olney, MP for nearby Richmond Park & North Kingston, along with former cabinet ministers and parliamentary candidates Vince Cable and Ed Davey. The pair are standing in Twickenham and Kingston & Surbiton constituencies, respectively. Addressing the crowd, Tim Farron acknowledged the "Lake District-style weather", before attacking both the Conservatives and Labour. The worst governments are the ones with the ...
The recent Richmond Park by-election was a huge victory for Liberal Democrats, further boosting our credibility and standing in the country with voters and the media. But it was also a great success for Progressive Alliance campaigners, who supported Sarah Olney's excellent campaign. The decision by the Green Party to stand down and endorse us, along with calls from a group of leading Labour figures for Labour to do the same, helped to recreate the conditions where we could win back the seat by leading a non-conservative bloc of voters to victory. These moves – by Labour figures and the ...
There are many excellent, occasionally scholarly, articles and listicles on The Wicker Man (The Grauniad has so many they even have a tag for it) but as this one came across my radar today, the most Wicker Manny of days, I thought I'd flag it up to you. That last is a beautifully detailed and well-researched love letter to one of my favourite films of all time. If you haven't the stomach to read something that long, though, here are a few reasons why I think you should watch the film*, today especially:It's the mother of all folk horror movies, ...
Labour are now standing aside for the Greens in Brighton Pavillion having worked out almost certainly correctly that the Tories would have taken it otherwise. The Greens are in turn standing aside in – wait, where are the Greens standing aside for their progressive brethren again? I can't keep track. The "progressive alliance" idea is a very, very bad one and furthermore, is a real gift to May and the Conservatives. One, it plays directly into her "coalition of chaos" message, showing that on one side you have the Tories, and on the other, a ragtag bunch of parties with ...
At a Council meeting recently the Labour Leader of Ealing Council made a comment that was more than a suggestion that he wants to stop all ward fora meetings.He said that Councillors should speak to the residents of their wards one to one. Well, a message for Councillor Bell is that the Liberal Democrats in Southfield ward, Chiswick, is that we do both. We have four ward fora meetings each year (almost all of the others have only 2, some three) plus we speak to people at both our Councillors' advice sessions and by knocking of residents' doors to survey ...
No, polling companies aren't trying to turn us into fascists"The question about a strong leader isn't what should be worrying you, it's how people answer it." dw100 | Challenge #651: censorIn which I wrote a very silly Two/Jamie fic No matter how cool superblack activated charcoal food looks, it's a bad idea... especially if you're on any kind of medication, including The Pill. Excellent Twitter thread: "I have been thinking about the "strong and stable" mantra, in the context of my mum, who thinks Theresa May is great."Really, really ought to be a blog post, though. Theresa May Says There ...
Looking out of the window at a rather grey and cool day, I remember that the weather on May 1st 1997 was nicer than it was today. There's every possibility that's just the memory cheating on me, but I don't recall it as being one of those election days where we spent it huddled in the committee room waiting for a break in the clouds, or where your hands started getting numb from cold after too much final hours door-knocking as the sun went down. I was in Colchester, of course, having come here to work at the University the ...
Last Saturday I attended a day conference on "A progressive, sustainable and social future" splendidly organised by the students of Leeds Beckett University. Clearly the conference was planned long before the calling of the general election, but the fact that it took place at the beginning of an election campaign made it all the more relevant. But not necessarily more effective.The concurrence of events had the unfortunate effect of stifling the discussion. The contributors included representatives of such as Global Justice Now (formerly the World Development Movement, of which I regard myself as a founder member), Jubilee Debt Campaign, War ...
Welcome to my email service Polling UnPacked. This brings you the best and latest news about British political opinion polling from a range of different experts direct to your inbox: Email* Name* First Last Click here for legal/privacy information.NameThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. This iframe contains the logic required to handle AJAX powered Gravity Forms. Polling UnPacked is different in two key ways from my range of other email lists. First, it's a carefully curated selection of stories from others, with just the occasional story from myself. I've gone for including stories from sites ...
After years and years of being talked about (some say it was first mooted after the Second World War!) Maghull is to finally get its long promised second railway station to be called quite unimaginatively 'Maghull North'. It will be on Merseyrail's Northern Line from Liverpool to Ormskirk and will be sited between the two over-bridges on School Lane and Park Lane. Here's the site before construction starts from both bridges:- Site for the new Maghull North Railway Station. Photo taken looking north from School Lane road bridge. The former Moss Side Hospital site is to the right and Mersey ...
Yesterday an opinion poll suggested that a majority of voters want the UK to remain in the single market. It's encouraging that the majority take this view, as I'm old enough to remember the difficulties of trading without it. In the 1980s, before the EU single market, I worked for a UK software company based in Nottingham. One of our partners ... The post Before the EU single market and the disaster of a hard Brexit appeared first on ten pence piece.
In 1780, a mob led by the half-crazed aristocrat Lord George Gordon stormed through London, shouting anti-Catholic slogans, demolishing buildings, setting free prisoners and - if Dickens can be believed in Barnaby Rudge - drinking molten lead from the roof of Newgate Gaol. The Gordon Riots cemented the British establishment;s horror of populism as the central plank of good government, and especially somehow anti-Catholic populism, which - as I have argued before - includes the sentiments behind Brexit. The Nazi experience convinced the Left too that all emotion should be excised from politics, for fear of - well, to start ...
Some of you reading this won't even have been born in 1997, or have been too young to take part in the General Election that year. 20 years ago today was a blistering hot day in Chesterfield. I was knocking up all over town. I had spent most of the campaign doing front of house in our brilliant little office which was happily situated right next door to a pretty decent Italian restaurant. Several times we ordered food from them and they brought it across on proper plates, with real cutlery. A total luxury for an election office. We had ...
As today is the May Day holiday at local schools, my usual ward surgeries at Harris Academy and the Mitchell Street Centre do not take place but I can be contacted at any time at home on 459378 or by e-mail at surgery@frasermacpherson.org.uk. My surgeries resume again on Thursday at 6.15pm prompt at Blackness Primary School (yes, its polling day, but Blackness Primary is not used as a polling station so my surgery can go ahead as normal!)
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - ROAD REPORT FOR THE WEST END REPORT FOR WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 1 MAY 2017 Riverside Esplanade/Riverside Drive (Tay Road Bridge off ramp to 75m along Riverside Drive) - westbound nearside lane closure for 29 weeks to facilitate V&A construction works. SSE Glenagnes Cable Renewal - Lochee Road lane restrictions and closures on Blinshall Street, Fleuchar Street and Scott Street for 12 weeks. Riverside Approach (Roseangle/Magdalen Yard Road to Riverside Drive) - closed from Tuesday 2 May for 2 weeks for carriageway resurfacing works.
Here's my latest election briefing video for new Liberal Democrat members, this time looking at why you'll be asked to deliver quite so many leaflets.
How Ireland achieved a crucial Brexit coup This is a good summary. Also, how to negotiate well. (tags: eu brexit ireland ) No agreement, no Unficyp and the Turkish troops stay The likely next steps for Cyprus. (tags: cyprus ) What is happening in Macedonia? A good summary. (tags: macedonia ) Brexit negotiations will be brutal, nasty and potentially short @IrishTimes on form. (tags: brexit eu )
It has long been the position of the Liberal Democrats that the final Brexit deal, if we have one, should be put to the British people in a second referendum so that they can judge whether it is what they opted for last year. Now it seems that we are not alone in this belief. According to the Independent they have now been joined by two senior Labour MPs. They say that Labour's Clive Lewis and Rachael Maskell have called for a second referendum on the final terms of the UK's exit from the European Union, putting themselves directly at ...
