After my stint at the BBC I headed to Ryton (via home where I got changed out of my suit). I had 3 patches to deliver with letters and leaflets. Job done by 4pm.
I was on the BBC Politics Programme (North East) edition today, along with Chi Onwurah (Labour MP for Newcastle Central), Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton) and Philip Broughton (UKIP candidate for Hartlepool). Nothing spectacular happened. Discussions were had on jobs, education and access to the Single Market. UKIP Philip seems very confident but I suspect he won't make
My new novel, Destroyer is out now. When Rudolph Hess flew to Britain, he was on a secret mission — to give Nazi spies in Britain the secrets of an occult ritual that would win the war for the Germans. ... Continue reading →
First there was a train crossing the old A41 and the canal on the way from Boxmoor gas works to Heath Park Halt. Then there was a train crossing the viaduct over Marlowes. This one shows a train passing the Plough Roundabout, which was known as Moor End Roundabout when I went to primary school nearby and later became famous as the Magic Roundabout.
We were back in Birtley yesterday to run a street stall and deliver letters and leaflets to postal voters. What a coincidence: when we got to the spot outside Morrisons where we had the stall 3 weeks ago, we found the National Union of Teachers there as well. I introduced myself to them and found out in conversation that they weren't teachers but worked for the NUT. And they also let me know
Mark Pack, editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire, explains why postal voters are different and how that alters campaigning.
Yes, Willie was brilliant and we'll come to that in a moment. But let's hear it for this nurse who had Nicola Sturgeon on the ropes. Two weeks ago the First Minister led her MSPs to vote against an end to the pay freeze for Scottish nurses. The nurse in the audience spoke very movingly about having to use a food bank. She also talked about how demoralising working in the NHS was. Watch her here. "You have no idea how demoralising it is to work within the NHS", says audience nurse at #leadersdebate https://t.co/u5WlVZxgul pic.twitter.com/zkDnDkxbfE — BBC Scotland News ...
Elections never come at the right time, especially for those of us who lead self-sufficient lifestyles - spring is a key season for planting and livestock births and hatchings. At the end of April, one of our goats gave birth to two babies, one of which was very weak. We have been raising him by hand and bottle feeding him (including at 4am each day). The kid has been named Whinnie by
The old boy's young friends turn up in all the most important places. Tuesday To the offices of the New New European. Who should I find working there but my old friends Freddie and Fiona? "We've written an article about Skegness," says one. "You won't have heard of it, but it's a funny little place in something called 'Lincolnshire'." "All the people there voted for Brexit, so we had a good laugh at them." "And now Paul Nuttall has decided to stand there, so we have laughed at them even more." I ask if they have ever been to Lincolnshire. ...
Originally written November 2015 and found in a folder on my laptop Let me describe where I am right now... I am sat in an empty Morrison's café at 8:30 AM. I don't start work until 10 and normally I would have taken the later bus of 8:55 instead of the 7:40 I have taken today. There are a few different reasons why I haven't taken that later bus. But let's stick with the main reason. A guy. A guy I know for a genuine fact will cause me drama in life just because of who he is. I had ...
"There can't be many people who realise their dad has Alzheimer's from listening to the BBC's Today programme. But six years ago, hearing my brilliant and erudite father, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Goodhart, stumbling and pausing through his interview with John Humphrys, I knew something was very wrong." A moving article and a suitable tribute to his father by Benjie Goodhart. Amelia Tate asks if 'dark ads' on Facebook will really swing the general election. The peerless Ian Jack discusses the derided British Rail sandwich and its part in the privatisation of our trains. Nicholas Barber on 'universe-shrinking': "What ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 481st weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere, a little earlier than usual because of the Scottish Leaders' Debate ... Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (14-10 May, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work ...
They do it down on Camber Sands, They do it at WaikikiA live version of the Squeeze single that got to no. 44 in the charts in 1980.
Current Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month) An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity, by J. Mulrooney Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, by Lois McMaster Bujold Every Step You Take, by Maureen O'Brien Last books finished The Dalek Factor, by Simon Clark The Winter Long, by Seanan McGuire The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd (did not finish) The Squire's Crystal, by Jac Rayner Argonautica by Valerius Flaccus Next books The Innocent Man, by John Grisham Warriors ed. George R. R. Martin
When Willie Goodhart died in January, in our tribute post, we put in a link to a wonderful piece written by his son Benjie during the 2010 election. In it, he talked about what it was like growing up in a very political household. It is one of those pieces that enrich your life. Benjie has done it again with a beautiful article, written with so much love, about the progress of his father's Dementia. It first became clear that something was wrong during a Today programme interview. For us - my sisters, my mother and me - the door ...
The story is on Richard Kemp's blog site accessible via the link above Richard and I have our differences as free thinking Liberals but I think he has really hit the nail on the head here with regard to Labour all but abandoning the poor. For me it started back in 2013 when Labour MP's began to seriously get behind welfare cuts. The Guardian newspaper link below gives the detail:- It was a starting point from which Labour has not really backtracked even under its supposedly socialist leadership as Richard Kemp details. For me the big issue of ...
miss_s_b | Weekend Recs I posted Weekend Recs to my dreamwidth blog A Primer on "Mansplaining," AKA When Men Don't Value Your Opinion Teen Vogue continues awesome Johnny Depp Wouldn't Have a Female Villain for 'Pirates 5' OFFS gallifrey_times | GT for Sunday the 21st of May 2017 The Lost Typefaces of W.A. Dwiggins - Atlas Obscura Flappers Didn't Really Wear Fringed Dresses via Conuly Extremis! - a poll about last night's Doctor Who [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Sun 21st
10:58
Edinburgh West profile: Labour candidate accepts that voters will vote tactically to defeat the SNP
Radio 4's PM programme covered Edinburgh West the other night and the profile was surprising in some ways. The Labour candidate, Mandy Telford, was pretty candid about tactical voting to stop the SNP: Labour is out there fighting for every vote but ultimately we are dead set against the SNP and their desire to have an unwanted second divisive independence referendum. That's the message we are getting back on the doorsteps very strongly. People will use their votes in whatever way they want to defeat the SNP. It's a cleverly crafted comment. She's obviously not endorsing any other candidate but ...
Cen Phillips and Frank Little, local Welsh Liberal Democrat candidates standing in the General Election for Aberavon and Neath, have pledged their support for pub-goers and beer drinkers in Wales by backing CAMRA's Election Manifesto. CAMRA's 187,000members are asking candidates to promote and celebrate Britain's 1,540 breweries and over 50,000 pubs by considering a range of measures to help make pub-going and beer drinking more affordable for UK consumers. Cen and Frank have committed to:Celebrate and promote Britain's breweriesSupport action to help pubs thriveRepresent the interest of pub-goers, beer and cider drinkers if elected into the next Parliament Beer, brewing ...
When Theresa May called this election she no doubt envisaged that her party would walk back into power with a massive majority, freed from all those pesky small-l liberal commitments hung over from the coalition and David Cameron's re-election in 2015. She would have been confident in that belief because of the weak opposition she faces both in Parliament and in the country. It may well be that she is proved right but if she is then that victory will underline the fragility of our democracy and how much it depends on effective scrutiny and opposition. Governments have had big ...
What's the about then? A couple of years ago, Peterborough City Council announced publicly it was introducing grey waste bins to help save the local authority money, by recycling food waste. At the time the Tories at the Town Hall claimed: It should enable the council to make savings of £300,000 a year. It would [...]
There's a super interview with Sutton and Cheam Lib Dem candidate Amna Ahmad in The Pool. So, who are the Lib Dems now, I ask Ahmad when we meet for coffee. She answers by telling me her issues: she is, of course, against a hard Brexit; she campaigns for NHS funding and sits on Norman Lamb's committee on the subject. She's against grammar-school funding, but not grammar schools per se: "I want the comprehensives to have a fighting chance." When I ask how she became a member, she recalls turning 18 the day before the Stop The War demo and ...
Norman Lamb has criticised the government following revelations by Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, that staff were set to leave the health service due to the government's pay freeze and failure to guarantee the right to remain of EU citizens. Norman Lamb, a former health minister, said: "This is a powerful indictment of Conservative under-funding of the NHS. A very senior NHS figure has told Theresa May to face up to the pay crisis, but Theresa May just doesn't seem to care. "Liberal Democrats have committed to end the pay freeze that is driving dedicated staff out ...
Sun 21st
08:37
My #Hastings #StLeonards #Rye election statement, as published by Hastings Online Times
Don't be fooled. Theresa May isn't trying to get the best Brexit deal for Britain, she's trying to get the best deal for the Conservative Party. A landslide general election victory won't make her appear any stronger to the EU negotiators, but it will give her a much stronger mandate to push through policies that [...]
I previously advised that, from tomorrow for up to 5 days, Roseangle will be closed to through traffic (towards the Perth Road end) from tomorrow due to gas connection works. I have been in touch with the City Council regarding the running of the 204 bus which comes down Roseangle then along Magdalen Yard Road on its route from the City Centre to Ninewells Hospital. As this bus is used by many elderly residents for whom a walk uphill from Magdalen Yard Road or up Windsor Street is a struggle, I was anxious to see what could be done to ...
Embed from Getty Images Batley and Spen is a gathering of typically independent, no-nonsense and proud Yorkshire towns and villages. Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what ​surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us. Those were the words of Jo Cox in her maiden speech to the House of ...
Monarchy is both a stupid idea and a good choice On days like this, it is hard to defend Britain's monarchy. It is beyond me how people manage to care about stuff like Pippa Middleton's wedding. It has the banality and irrelevance of celebrity news, but lacks the colourful characters and outrageous behaviour. That combination [...]
The manifestos tell us that Britain has a big gap in its major-party politics, a gap that's bigger than it has been perhaps in a generation. It's not, however, the one that the media seemed to be angling for. The expectation given was of a "hard right" Tory party against a "hard left" Labour party. [...]
An announcement by the Labour Party tonight that it would invest £45bn in the NHS and social care over five years as well as protect pensions could be rendered meaningless by Brexit, Liberal Democrats have said. Treasury analysis from 2016 estimated that the form of Brexit supported by the Labour and Conservative parties – a negotiated bilateral agreement as opposed to membership of the single market – would rob public services of £36bn EACH YEAR. A botched Brexit could cost the Exchequer up to £45 billion a year. The government has neither formally rejected this analysis nor commissioned new figures ...
