The Lib Dem Press Office's work rate at the moment is nothing short of phenomenal. They are putting out so many press releases and comments. It's all good stuff. Despite working even more flat out than usual for pretty much a moth, it's been good tonight to see that they haven't lost their sense of humour. Eurovision is a bit like Lib Dem Christmas and whoever was running the press office's Twitter account was certainly in the festive spirit. Eurovision soon! Who can believe it is 20 years since Paul Nuttall brought it home with that fantastic rendition of 'Love ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

The Obelisk, which was built by Wentworth as a memorial to his friend William Cavendish, the fourth Duke of Devonshire, loomed up in the distance as I walked around Boughton on Saturday. One day I will go back and photograph it close up, though I have the feeling that it is one of those buildings that will move around the landscape if you try too hard to pin it down.That's what I wrote last summer after visiting Boughton and its follies, just to the north of Northampton. I went back today, taking the Obelisk by surprise by approaching it from ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Lib Dems have been reacting to the cyber-attack, telling the Conservatives that they should have put more resources into preventing this type of crime. Brian Paddick said: The Conservatives try to paint themselves as the party of law and order but crime has changed and they have failed to keep up. Instead of investing in the security of the systems that our public services rely on, they have chosen to extend surveillance systems instead. Rather than giving the NHS the funding it needs to keep its IT up to date, you have a Home Secretary who wants to weaken encryption ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sat 13th
20:03

Six of the Best 691

"Ever since she took over from David Cameron last summer, she has spoken as if Britain is a nation harmoniously united, aside from the divisive forces of party politics and liberal elites seeking to thwart the 'will of the people.'" William Davies dissects Theresa May's vapid vision of a one-party state. Bernard Aris looks at the history of internationalism in the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats. The privatisation of the Forensic Science Service in 2010 has brought about a crisis in the criminal justice system, argues Jerry Hayes. Bethlem Museum of the Mind on the rumour of a Petition ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

What's this to do with? You know how times are tough? You know how the City Council have reduced some areas of pay for staff who work in their care services? Well, in stark contrast the Tories at the Town Hall, this year decided to give the lawyers a nice pay rise! According to the [...]

Posted by Cllr Darren Fower on Cllr Darren Fower
Sat 13th
19:16

Tributes to Emily Price

The Aberystwyth Liberal Democrats and particularly its strong and close-knit branch of Young Liberals are in shock today after learning that the incoming Vice-Chair of the Welsh Young Liberals (IR Cymru) Emily Price died in hospital last night. She had been taken ill after being elected as a Town Councillor in Aberystwyth last week. On social media, I see her described as beautiful, gentle, kind, funny, someone who was going places – clearly someone who was a popular and well-loved member of her community. Last Monday she handed in her university dissertation. She had been going to do her Masters ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

The dilemma about a ten hour flight is how to fill the time. Despite the trip from Amsterdam to Tokyo being a red eye, it did not make a difference due to my disregard of sleeping in seats. I scrolled through the latest blockbusters on the seat's monitor to see what movies would grab my attention. ... Continue reading The Land of the Rising Sun

Posted by Ryan Lailvaux on Roaming Ryan

The Liberal Democrat call for a regulated market in cannabis this week has attracted more media interest than out policies normally do. You can read the evidence behind this policy in the report A framework for a regulated market for cannabis in the UK: Recommendations from an expert panel. That expert panel was made up of: Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Chair)Mike Barton, Chief Constable, Durham ConstabularyNiamh Eastwood, Executive Director, ReleaseTom Lloyd, Chair of the National Cannabis Coalition and former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire PoliceProfessor Fiona Measham, Professor of Criminology, Durham UniversityProfessor David Nutt, Founder of ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Thank you for your recent email on animal welfare. The Scottish Liberal Democrats are strong supporters of animal welfare and will continue to protect wildlife, pets and farm animals in the next parliament.Up to 2015, Liberal Democrats at Westminster were able to make significant progress on improving animal welfare. Many of these achievements affect the whole of the UK, including the ending of housing hens in battery cages and tackling the smuggling and illegal trade of wildlife through the Border Force. Previously, I have visited livestock farms in the Pentland Hills and seen best practice at work. I know that ...

Posted by Martin Veart on Martin's View

Liberal Democrats have today announced a package of measures aimed at tackling recruitment and retention challenges across the Armed Forces. These measures include cash incentives for new STEM graduates who join up, and a new "careers for heroes" scheme to pay for the full cost of further and higher education for Armed Forces personnel who have served for twelve or more years. These ambitious policies have been announced on the same day that the Liberal Democrats have committed to the NATO target of 2% defence spending. Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron said: "Liberal Democrats believe in a strong, credible UK ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats
YouGov

The Liberal Democrats have demanded an inquiry into why the Conservatives cut cyber-security support a year ago when it axed a £5.5m deal with Microsoft. Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Brian Paddick said: "We need to get to the bottom of why the government thought cyber-attacks were not a risk, when a combination of warnings and plain common sense should have told ministers that there is a growing and dangerous threat to our cyber-security. "It is worrying that in Amber Rudd we have a Home Secretary in the digital age more suited to the era of analogue. This is not ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats

Let's get this straight. Some former Labour voters are backing the Tories because they think we need a strong and stable leader, while some Tories are switching to the Liberal Democrats because they want to oppose Brexit, and some Liberal Democrats are switching to Labour because they want radicalism, while some former UKIP voters are going back to Labour because they think they're the party that will deal with their Very Real Concerns, while others are going to the Tories because they're now the party of Brexit. Meanwhile in some places Greens have stood down to help Labour and Liberal ...

Posted by Nick on What You Can Get Away With

This is probably the only time I've managed to take a photo of Stirling Cables tower, in Newbury, which looks remotely pretty. The Stirling Cables estate has served Newbury well, creating employement for over a century. Now it is largely demolished and its iconic tower was finally reduced to a few stubs yesterday – see ... Continue reading Farewell to a unloved icon of the Newbury landscape

Posted by paulwalternewbury on

There's a reason that a lot of planets in American science fiction look the same: they're all filmed in the same places. But why those particular locations?

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Sat 13th
15:05

Dear Jeremy...

Dear Jeremy, As a student nurse, it is my duty to tell people that you are destroying the NHS. I love every single moment of what I do. Nursing is my calling but I feel that because of you, I may not be able to fulfil that calling to the best of my ability. [...]

Posted by vloggerhannah on The Liberal Queen

After reading another round of carping below the line on LibDem Voice, I thought I would chip in with some carping of my own...against the carpers: Firstly, we emphatically don't have the cash or human resources to enable us to fight anything but a very limited target - seat operation. This might also explain the disparity between the seeming optimism of Tim Farron and other senior LibDems, and the gloom when faced with yet another poll with the party stuck in single figures. Secondly, being reduced to 8 MPs and 8% of the vote in 2015 means we don't have ...

Posted by James on Badly Drawn Llama

We were in Ryton this morning, with a street stall on Main Road, outside the Coop. Lots of useful conversations were held with voters. Our most recent leaflet has just gone out in the ward and I was recognised by various people from it. My first conversation was with a UKIP voter who said that he was voting for me as he wants a good local MP and is fed up with Labour taking the area for granted

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

The day is here and, excitingly, it looks like anyone could win! And by anyone, I mean Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria or the UK. Of course, probably not the UK but it really is the best of the bunch and Lucie Jones has been nailing it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Twenty countries have made it through from the semi-finals to join the six pre-qualifiers: the Big Five who put the big money in and Ukraine, last year's winner and this year's host. The running order was decided after the second semi-final so here they are in order with my ...

Posted by Will on No geek is an island

Jo Swinson has been talking to the local East Dunbartonshire paper the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald about why she is standing for Parliament, hoping to regain the seat she held for 10 years until 2015: She said: "It was a really close result last time and I loved working as a local MP for my home area, a community that I love and where I'd grown up. I would love to do that again. "That is coupled with a deep concern about the direction of the country. "There are real challenges ahead such as the Brexit negotiations and the uncertainty ...

Posted by NewsHound on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sat 13th
12:08

All White in Barking

Last night I was at the Stratford Picturehouse for a special screening of Marc Isaac's 2007 documentary, All White in Barking, organised by the City Circle, with which I have been marginally involved for a few years now. The Circle, originally based at Toynbee Hall in Tower Hamlets, provides a safe space for communities to self-critically [...]

Posted by jonathanfryer on Jonathan Fryer
eUKhost

Simple question: which MP once triggered a point of order in the House of Commons for attempting to vote in their pyjamas?

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

So yesterday I went out on my bike for the first time in months; I did 8 miles! it was ace! However, this morning my... uh... parts are kinda sore and bruised, because the canal towpath, while very pretty and traffic-free, is a bit bumpy; also the saddle on my bike, despite claiming to have a gel seat pad, is not the softest. So! What do I do to cure this? Do I need a new saddle? If so, what kind do you recommend? Is one of those lycra gel seat pads that you can get off eBay worth the ...

"I am Tim!", squeaks tiny, adorable Liberal Democrat leaderEvery time I look at Our Glorious Leader now, my brain is going to squeak "I am Groot!" *shakes fist* Damn you DavyWavy! HP laptops covertly log user keystrokes, researchers warnOh bugger. If People Talked About Other Things the Way They Talked About Gender IdentityI've actually heard at least one of these expressed seriously, though... :/ A first-person account of anti-LGBT hate crime in the UKBrexit ministers misled us over immigration, say furious curry house bosses*sigh* While there is an argument that the curry houses were daft to fall for "we'll cure ...

At the last General Election, we did this "Beware Blukip" thing to warn against a Tory/UKIP coalition. At the time, I thought it was a bit ill-advised because my real worry was the Tories getting a majority. They did that and look what havoc they have wreaked since. If the Labour manifesto is supposedly going back to the 70s, the Conservative one will be going back even further to a rose-tinted view of the 1950s, rolling back as much of the social progress we've made in my lifetime as it can. I mean, fox hunting. Really. It now emerges that ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

It was only two days ago that I blogged here on Britain's housing crisis, highighting the appalling statistics that show how deeply we have sunk into the mire. In particular on the issue of affordability, there is the study by Price Waterhouse Cooper in July 2015, which concluded that by 2025 half of all under 40s will be renting privately. And of course the fact that faced with an acute shortage in the supply of affordable and accessible the UK Government is actually halving its subsidy to Housing Associations, spending just over £1 billion on helping them build new homes, ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

The Guardian has the story on it web site – see link above Quote from the article – 'Cars have helped drive the UK's recovery since the 2008 financial crash. British factories are today making more cars than at any time this century, and consumers are buying more of them than at any time in history. The question, though, is whether cars, and the way we buy them, will be the cause of Britain's next financial crisis.' With thanks to Roy Connell for the lead to this posting

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus
Sat 13th
09:18

Hello, Kyiv!

[IMG: A man in a hamster wheel] Ukraine have been in Eurovision since 2003 and have reached the final every year, save 2015 where they weren't able to take part in the contest because *cough* reasons. In that time, they've won the contest twice and have also been responsible for some of the most memorable staging of the last 20 years. In honour of their hosting this year's contest, here are my top 5 entries from Ukraine. 5. Ani Lorak - Shady Lady This is what Ukraine entries have excelled at over the years: three-minute power pop brought alive on ...

Posted by Will on No geek is an island

The Space Navy Party, standing against me in Blaydon constituency, is an unknown quantity. A short search on Google has helped me find their party political broadcast. It's from the 1970s. Labour will therefore love it!

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

A poll in the New European has shown a massive swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats of Remain supporters. From the paper: The poll, of more than 1,300 respondents, compares how people voted in the 2015 General Election with how they intend to vote next month. It suggests the Liberal Democrats will double their share of the vote in this significant section of the population, while Labour's will halve. Two thirds (66.6%) said they would be voting Lib Dem on June 8, with Labour on just 22.3%. This represents a huge swing since 2015, when 43.9% voted Labour, and ...

Posted by NewsHound on Liberal Democrat Voice

Here's your chance to win a copy of Prime Minister Corbyn and other things that never happened and show how smart you are to boot. Just enter the Lib Dem Newswire competition to predict the Lib Dem general election result: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/ge2017web (In the event of a tie, the winner will be the first person to have entered, so don't delay...!)

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Seven months after it was submitted, a planning application to delete plans for a footbridge over the Corve to Fishmore View has been formally approved. I don't know what the delay was as we have known of the decision since the end of January. But it is good to have it confirmed in writing. The officer report accompanying the decision gives full support to dropping the footbridge from the plans (16/04545/VAR). It questions the reasoning applied by the planning inspector who approved the housing scheme and is critical of his failure to consider the scale and visual impact of the ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

From the City Council : THE ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984 : SECTION 14(1) THE DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL AS TRAFFIC AUTHORITY being satisfied that traffic on the road should be prohibited by reason of SGN service connection works being carried out HEREBY PROHIBIT the driving of any vehicle in Roseangle (between Perth Road and Seabraes Court), Dundee. This notice comes into effect on Monday 22 May 2017 for 5 working days. Pedestrian thoroughfare will be maintained. Alternative routes are available via Perth Road / Windsor Street / Magdalen Yard Road. For further information contact 433082. Mike P GallowayExecutive Director of ...

Usually general elections carry with them some element of frisson. There's normally an X-factor at play that makes the campaign exciting – at least, if you're into that sort of thing. 2005 saw questions about how many seats the Lib Dems could take off the back of Iraq (answer: not nearly as many as most Lib Dems or indeed political pundits thought they could beforehand); 2010 had the whiff of hung parliament about it and what that would bring; 2015 also had the scent of no overall majority as well (although it turned out to be a false wind that ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

How to revive TTIP @tonylgardner's (wild) optimism with sober reflection on past mistakes. (tags: uspolitics ttip eu ) Leave the Abbey, Join the Playground: The Crucial Influence of Foreign Breweries on Belgian Beer A syncretic tradition. (tags: beer Belgium ) General Election 2017: NI candidates confirmed - BBC News 109 this year, 138 in 2015 - a 21% decline in two years! (tags: Northernireland )

Most of us imagine that before currencies came along economies worked something like this: Say, you made bread but you needed meat. But what if the town butcher didn't want your bread? You'd have to find someone who did, trading until you eventually got some meat. In an article for the Atlantic, Ilana E. Strauss makes [...]

Posted by Mark Mills on Matter Of Facts

Tim Farron has laid down the law to developers, warning that unless they build the homes Britain needs, the government will.Tim has made house building one of his very top manifesto commitments, having campaigned to increase Britain's housing supply throughout his career. The Liberal Democrat manifesto will commit to ensuring 300,000 homes a year are built for sale and rent by the end of the parliament.Leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron said:"If developers won't deliver the homes Britain needs, we will. The government will become a house-builder itself, bringing in the contractors to actually construct the homes and then ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrats will take back control from criminal gangs, take 'skunk' off the streets, and protect young people by introducing a legal, regulated market for cannabis.The Lib Dems have unveiled a manifesto commitment to bring the sale of cannabis under a system of strict legal regulation.Commenting, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Cambridge and former Home Affairs Select Committee member Julian Huppert said:"Cannabis is freely available and widely used. It generates significant health problems and vast profits for organised crime."The current approach is a disaster for young people, whose mental and physical health is being harmed by an increasingly potent product. ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats