It is a truism that over the past decades, politics in many Western democracies has drifted away from an economic axis of left and right to one of liberal-authoritarian, open-closed, or anywhere-somewhere. Increasingly, issues of identity and culture such as ... Continue reading →
It's back to council by-elections after the general election, with five held this week. First in: a Conservative hold with a swing to the Liberal Democrats and the party's candidate Alec Jones: Soham North (East Cambridgeshire) result: CON: 59.7% (-4.3) LDEM: 25.1% (+4.6) LAB: 15.2% (-0.4) Conservative HOLD — Britain Elects (@britainelects) June 22, 2017
When I set off to photograph Northampton's Eleanor Cross I imagined a hot uphill walk beside the London Road. But that road turned out to be fringed by woodland, so I could make my way along shaded paths. These woods are part of the Delapre Abbey estate and this part of it became somewhat degraded after the second world war. A notice explains that they are being restored to how they would have been in the late 1930s. The abbey itself is still undergoing restoration work, but - importantly - the cafe was open on Saturday.
Channel 4 has been digging away again: The Conservative Party contracted a secretive call centre during the election campaign which may have broken data protection and election laws, a Channel 4 News investigation has found... The investigation has uncovered what appear to be underhand and potentially unlawful practices at the centre, in calls made on behalf of the Conservative Party. These allegations include: Paid canvassing on behalf of Conservative election candidates - banned under election law. Political cold calling to prohibited [i.e. TPS registered] numbers Misleading calls claiming to be from an 'independent market research company' which does not apparently ...
In an article for The Guardian, Norman Lamb has announced he is not in the running to be the next Liberal Democrat leader. Europe, not surprisingly, features heavily in his comments: I have just fought a gruelling campaign to win my North Norfolk seat. Attempting to win a seat for the Liberal Democrats in an area that voted quite heavily to leave the EU was bound to be a challenge. Not only was the party's position on Brexit toxic to many erstwhile Liberal Democrat voters in North Norfolk, but I found myself sympathising with those who felt that the party ...
Liverpool Council is not the model of transparency and good governance that I think it should be!! For the past few weeks I have been trying, with limited success, to get a response to a number of questions that I ... Continue reading →
[IMG: Canterbury Cathedral] Michael Mullaney analyses the Liberal Democrat performance in this month's general election: "Whilst increasing our MPs, and having four narrow misses, we have at this election still suffered a further loss of second places, a further loss of deposits, and a continuing fallback in large parts of Britain, particularly the North, the Midlands and Wales." Political bots are poisoning democracy, say Hadley Newman and Kevin O'Gorman. Gavin Stamp says we should not expect England great cathedrals to look after themselves. "The spare performances ... add to the album's intimacy, sparking a revealing listen that at times comes ...
Embed from Getty Images Norman Lamb contributed an article to the Guardian website under the headline 'Why I won't be the Lib Dems' next leader'. The odd thing is that, beyond the opening observation that Norman has "just fought a gruelling campaign to win my North Norfolk seat," the article read as though he was announcing his decision to stand for the Liberal Democrat leadership. He writes: We need to understand why so many people get frustrated with remote power - something that Liberals should understand. The European Union is too often dysfunctional and sclerotic, yet progressive internationalists have been ...
The General Election has left most Liberal Democrats feeling flat and hugely disappointed. We had hoped to create a springboard in the earlier Local Government elections, but fell short. (In many cases, like mine, frustratingly close, but still short.) So now, with our commitment to enter no deals with either Theresa May [insert current Tory party leader here] nor Jeremy Corbyn, the party will continue to struggle to find any independent influence. A weak and wobbly minority government, with its damaged, exposed Prime Minister and with an official opposition living in financial La-La Land, mean that the Liberal Democrats should ...
Well so it seems with one moving from its present site on Westway into Maghull Square and a new one opening in August on the site of the former Maghull Library. The floor area of the new store looks to be slightly bigger than the one to be relocated in the Square so a slightly larger range of products can be envisaged but this means that two quite similar stores will be being run within a few hundred yards of each other. Are you, like me, wondering if there is a an interesting back-story to this situation or is just ...
Start of the return journey: The twenty-second, having well refreshed our soldiers, and agreed on the plan of fortifications, with other matters for answering the service both by sea and lande. we returned back to Castel-Mayne, camping that night at The Inch, beside the Baye of Dingell. I have forgotten to lett your Lordship understand, that the ships hath made themselves a sort of castel upon the shore, and hath their cattel passing about it, which they take from the natives by marching farre into the countrie. Interesting and entirely un-ironic reference to "natives". (Of course, White was an Irish ...
Tim Farron ended his first speech as leader of the Liberal Democrats saying: Here is our call tonight: liberals of Britain, if you want a better Britain, then you need to do something about it. Come and be part of the most joyful, inspiring and worthwhile comeback in political history, because that comeback starts right ... Continue reading Under Tim Farron's leadership
Well there's a surprise. I had honestly thought that Norman Lamb would stand again to be leader. This afternoon, though, he has ruled himself out in an article for the Guardian: I have just fought a gruelling campaign to win my North Norfolk seat. Attempting to win a seat for the Liberal Democrats in an area that voted quite heavily to leave the EU was bound to be a challenge. Not only was the party's position on Brexit toxic to many erstwhile Liberal Democrat voters in North Norfolk, but I found myself sympathising with those who felt that the party ...
In the last leadership election I went to several of the hustings. They were interesting enough events but didn't really probe much into the candidates. The format was usually a speech by the candidates followed by questions and then a final summation. The candidates trotted out the same stories and jokes and answered the same questions they had been asked before. What was missing was any sense of the sort of testing questions which someone would get when they were Party Leader and in particularly the follow up questions. Both Tim and Norman were well prepared for the questions they ...
Following the failure of the government to put forward a Prisons and Courts Bill, Liberal Democrat Justice spokesperson Jonathan Marks has seized on an open letter by the Justice Secretary today which made no mention of the bill being axed. Jonathan Marks, who will continue to call for prison improvement and reform, said: "The Prisons and Courts Bill was a flagship piece of legislation for the last government but has been unceremoniously dropped from this Queen's Speech. The crisis in our prisons may have dropped out of headlines but remains a huge problem. "Our prisons are hangovers from the Victorian ...
Thu 22nd
14:32
Liberal Democrats secure commitment from Home Secretary on Commission for Countering Extremism
Today in the House of Commons the Rt Hon Ed Davey secured a commitment from the Home Secretary that the Commission for Countering Extremism would listen to voices from all communities who are willing to work with the Government to defeat extremism. Commenting after the statement in the chamber Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary said: "It is absolutely vital that the Government works with the communities most likely to be affected by counter extremism and de-radicalisation programmes. For all the good the Prevent strategy may have achieved it has been fatally wounded by the lack of trust ...
On election night, I was knocking up voters in a very posh bit of the Edinburgh West constituency. It was going well with most folk indicating that they had already voted for Christine Jardine. I got to one house where a very angry man told me he wasn't voting for us and wasn't sure who he would vote for as, in his view, everyone had run a negative campaign focusing on what was wrong with the other candidates. I'd not concede that Christine's campaign was wholly negative – although the voters did need to know where we stood on the ...
Thanks to a nomination from a reader, the Middlesbrough Gazette wins our Headline of the Day Award.
The Independent has the story of its web site – see link above Quote from the article – "The history books offer no precedent for an ageing, powerless leader, deciding finally to send out coded messages to the people via daring headwear choices, but it is 2017, the single worst thing to happen since 2016 - so anything is possible. We can only hope there is more to come." Don't mess with Liz's horse racing! x With thanks to Jen Robertson for the lead to this posting
It was good to see the Derwentside Trust recognised in the Volunteering Celebration Event recently organised by Durham Community Action. Pictured here at Beamish Museum, where the event was held, are Sharon Unsworth and Jackie Rennoldson who received a certificate on behalf of the many volunteers who now make Glenroyd House tick. I am full of admiration for the amount of time, commitment, enthusiasm and good cheer all the volunteers bring to the building which now functions as a real community hub, particularly for some of the least privileged members of our local society who rely on the food bank ...
I was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Macclesfield in Cheshire at the June General Election. Six weeks earlier, after Theresa May's as-it-turned-out vainglorious decision to go to the country, Macclesfield Liberal Democrats had found themselves in need of a candidate. And I answered the call. The last time Macclesfield elected a Liberal was William Brocklehurst (junior) in 1910, and for the last 100 years they have returned only Conservatives (or Unionists) to Westminster. Alas, I was not able to celebrate William's centenary by retaking the seat. But I did hold on to the lion share of our vote from two ...
Wed, 12:37: RT @UKPoliticalNews: 'My Government will give the Democratic Unionists whatever they need to finally get this deal done' #QueensSpeech http... Wed, 12:56: Russia's Cyberwar on Ukraine Is a Blueprint For What's to Come https://t.co/7GVXuZpmCZ *gulp* Wed, 16:05: London's Tube has been running so long it's literally raising the temperature of the earth around it | CityMetric https://t.co/WOej9HfX2O ... Wed, 18:52: Dingle of the Husseys, Part 10 https://t.co/1NYGLjkkN5 Thu, 09:53: Actually, most people do move as much furniture as they can on the first day. Weird metaphor anyway. https://t.co/nn5erKeKJs
miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 21-06-2017 I posted The Blood is the Life for 21-06-2017 to my dreamwidth blog Twitter RT @miss_s_b: For a given definition of "unexpected" which includes "not very" for anyone who has actually looked into the conce... miss_s_b | A reminder of the contents of my sticky post, for the hard of thinking I posted A reminder of the contents of my sticky post, for the hard of thinking to my dreamwidth blog Never mind the headline, feel the content - an email from LDHQ When I saw the subject line of this, ...
Last Wednesday, just a day after Tim Farron announced his resignation, I attempted to take a day off from politics. I had the day set aside for a visit to Beamish Museum. I was about to head out of the door when the phone rang. It was Richard Moss from BBC Look North wanting an interview with me about Tim's resignation. As a friend of Tim from his Newcastle University days, the BBC were after a
Liberalism's ideas, implemented either by Liberal Democrats or by others, have been wholly vindicated. This has been so on free trade and market economics; on the nature of social injustice and the need for a compassionate, intelligent state; on civil liberties and on foreign intervention. Whilst not always heard - and, let's face it, often unpopular - our party has stood for the best of its traditions in the best interests of our country. With a leadership election almost underway, what is the political landscape in which we find ourselves, and what will our next leader (and the party) have ...
Angela Rayner appeared on Channel 4 news this week, alongside Vince Cable and Ken Clarke. They were all supposed to be on there essentially as Team Remain, but the cracks began to appear very quickly in this façade. Partly due to differences of opinion on how to deal with austerity, but not surprisingly it had more to do with the opacity of Labour's stance on how Brexit should be handled. "We in the Labour Party have always been clear on what should happen with Brexit," Rayner said, to which the rest of the panel could only guffaw. When asked for ...
The Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner has this week released his plan for taking over the Fire Service, justifying the idea with massive 'efficiency savings' including 'one-off capital receipts' of up to £15m. Paul Zukowskyj, lead Lib Dem member on the Community Safety panel at County Hall condemned the move saying, "David Lloyd has virtually completed [...]
Yate Road will be closed for up to 5 days from 26th June from the junction with Armstrong Way to approximately 50m south of the road over rail bridge. That's the road that runs from the big roundabout on the Iron Acton road, heading south to join up with Stover Road. This is to allow urgent repair works to be carried out on the bridge. The 7.5t Weight Restriction on the A432 Station Road between its junctions with Longs Drive and Westerleigh Road will be temporarily suspended. The diversion route will be B4059 Iron Acton Way, B4059 Goose Green Way, ...
Yesterday's Queen's Speech was notable not just for the Queen's Euro hat but for the fact that it is still uncertain whether the Prime Minister can command a majority to get it through the House of Commons. The chances are that the DUP will vote for the speech because to do otherwise will remove their bargaining power. It seems to me that Arlene Foster's party views these talks more like a form of Chinese water torture rather than the better defined process Theresa May had hoped for. If that is the case then we could be in for a prolonged ...
At the request of residents, I raised with the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership the condition of the road surface in Richmond Terrace. I have now received the following response : "A number of potholes in Richmond Terrace have been repaired within the last few days. Richmond Terrace is provisionally included in the 2021-2022 Carriageway Programme. In the meantime it will continue to be inspected on a regular basis and any actionable defects noted will be repaired to ensure safety is maintained." I am anxious to see resurfacing earlier than this and will continue to pursue this.
The one thing I took in from the television news last night was that yesterday was the hottest June day since 1976. And suddenly it took me back. That was the month I did my A Levels. In fact, beyond the haze of early adulthood and triumphant release from exams, I remember very little about the summer, which I spent reading a prodigious number of books and drinking rather too much. My grandparent's pond dried up completely. The government even appointed a drought minister. But what I do remember is that, in the endless sunshine, the restaurants of London's West ...
Thu 22nd
01:57
Why councillors should not have rubber stamped the Teaching Assistant Deal until they knew the full ...
I won't have won many friends at County Hall yesterday by arguing that the decision on the TA deal should be delayed whilst councillors looked at the small print, but I make no apology. The deal that is being offered is much better than the one that was to be imposed on TAs twelve months ago, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's good enough. I'm not naive, and I know that the council had to address the appalling mish-mash of contracts that it had issued to TAs over the last five or more years. Those contracts meant that some ...
Hello to all. I write after what has been a very frustrating day for both me and my wife. Sitting downstaris on my own after logging on my works system to do a little work and complete my mid year review, then finding it didn't want to work, I remembered I used to use my ... Continue reading Frustrations back to political commentary! →
The Queen's Speech to Parliament today, setting out what Theresa May's minority government hopes to achieve over the next couple of years — if it survives that long — was a watered-down affair. Gone were many of the more contentious pledges in the Conservatives' election manifesto, such as increasing the number of grammar schools and [...]
