Mark Webb gave this lecture a year ago at the conference 'Planning Leicester: Town planning and the historic environment since the 1960s'. I have already posted two other lecture from that event: The importance of the archaeology and standing buildings of LeicesterLeicester: A totally uninteresting Midlands city?
After a shareholder revolt, the chairman of a City firm which made £25,000 worth of donations to Conservative candidates has agreed to reimburse the firm for the money given: The chairman of City trading outfit NEX is paying back the £25,000 of shareholders funds the company donated to Tory election candidates in an attempt to keep out Remain backing Liberal Democrat MPs, including Sir Vince Cable. Charles Gregson said he would refund the money from his own pocket following consultations with investors and governance groups... NEX, run by former Tory Party Treasurer Michael Spencer, targeted seats where sitting Tories enjoyed ...
Embed from Getty Images As an acknowledged expert on politics in Bath, I was interested in the comments of the city's defeated Conservative MP Ben Howlett: When the election was called, Howlett warned the chief whip Gavin Williamson that if the party were to win a bigger majority, it would need "the infrastructure in order to run the campaign on the ground in our key marginal constituencies . . . we don't have the infrastructure. Labour's polls were low, but they had the infrastructure, Momentum, going out there, knocking on doors constantly." Indeed, there are stories about how Downing Street ...
Tonight the contentious planning application for new housing was before Sefton Council's Planning Committee for the land (in Lydiate) off Maghull's Turnbridge Road. Big turn-out of protesting residents at tonight's Sefton Council Planning Committee meeting in Bootle Town Hall. Turnbridge Road was the second item on the agenda following another contentious application for the former Peerless Factory site on Dunnings Bridge Road in Netherton. Oddly the Peerless site seemed to be almost a model of what community engagement in the planning process should be whereas Turnbridge sadly looked to be nothing like that. June Avery addressing the Planning Committee Local ...
When the law over political donations was overhauled (or rather, introduced – as it had previously been pretty much a secret free-for-all), an exception was made for Northern Ireland. The requirements for transparency of donations in the rest of the UK* was not applied to Northern Ireland as, still fresh from its years of bloody violence, it was felt by many that forcing political donors to be named was not yet appropriate. That secrecy has, however, come under recent sustained criticism as it has opened up a loophole for secret donations to impact not only elections in Northern Ireland but ...
I don't want to make a prediction, because as we all know the volatility of our current political situation and the multi-level constitutional crises that last years Brexit vote brought on leads to a lot of egg on a lot of faces, however there are a few observations I'd like to make So, after Mr Cummings "did a Ratner" and following on from Gisela Stuart also saying that Brexit was a mistake - they are not constrained by constituents or really parties anymore, so we can take this to be their honest opinion - if key architects of Brexit can ...
Second paragraph of third section of first part:It was near sunset at Castle Caladan on the day of Paul's ordeal. The two women were alone in Jessica's morning room while Paul waited in the adjoining soundproofed Meditation Chamber.Second paragraph of third part:Past the private kitchen he [Baron Harkonnen] stormed —past the library, past the small reception room and into the servants' antechamber where the evening relaxation had already set in.I last re-read Dune sixteen years ago, when I was starting my previous attempt to run through all the joint Hugo and Nebula winners, in alphabetical order of title. Now I'm ...
A couple of weeks ago I was due to meet with one of my counterparts in the Conservative whips office. These meetings are routine and are not normally the subject of comment. This particular meeting was intended to deal with allocation of offices between the parties for MPs to use. In fact the meeting did not go ahead although I DID meet the Government Chief Whip's Private Secretary (known inside the bubble as the usual channels). The meeting that did not happen (mundane though it was) somehow found its way into the Daily Mail who proceeded to speculate wildly about ...
This is one for all you Brexiters out there to ponder on as you followed the line put out by such folk and you got us into the mess that the UK now finds itself in. Yes I know that 80% of the electorate voted for a hard Brexit in the recent General Election as both Labour and the Tories promised such in their manifestos. And yes its more than the 52% you Brexiters gained in the EU Referendum so I am sure you feel you have won the argument hands down. But what exactly have you won? A ...
Nor for the first time, York's daily paper The Press wins our Headline of the Day Award.
Veteran Liberal Democrat campaigner and former Councillor, Annette Hendry sadly passed away on Wednesday 31st May after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 74. It's very sad that my first ever article for Lib Dem Voice should be this, but I wanted to celebrate Annette's life and all she achieved. Annette was one of my local liberal heroes. She met her husband Alan while she was reading English at University College London and the couple eventually moved to Reading for Alan's job. Annette started her long service to the community in Reading by teaching English as a ...
Tue, 12:04: RT @CER_IanBond: Depressing that UK eurosceptics are still trying to drag Ireland down with #Brexit Britain, when it's clear Irish gov't wa... Tue, 18:51: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne https://t.co/95kLiBD7WV Wed, 08:34: RT @Walldo: Redditor HanAssholeSolo, the guy who posted the Trump/CNN clip the president tweeted, has apologized to @CNN, the media, and ot... Wed, 08:35: RT @worldcon75: Ten days to go! Online voting in #TheHugoAwards close at 23:59 Pacific Standard Time on 15 July 2017! https://t.co/ZbsOLGF... Wed, 10:45: Why May's Hardline Irish Friends Aren't Likely to Soften ...
miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 04-07-2017 I posted The Blood is the Life for 04-07-2017 to my dreamwidth blog How Centrism Works This is why you will find me (and lots of other actual liberals) railing against the centrist tendency in the Lib Dems. This is EXACTLY how the last eight or so years have gone. Theresa May accused of suppressing report into deaths in police custody [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple having been 'ousted' a decade before. In that time the famous 'Mac' hadn't progressed. Microsoft's Windows had caught up and overtaken it. Sales were down 30% year-on-year. It was haemorrhaging cash and talent. There were no new products in the pipeline. Speaking to staff Jobs explained, "There are a lot of great people at Apple, but they're doing the wrong things because the plan has been wrong." "I think you still have to think differently to buy an Apple computer. The people who buy them do think different. They are the creative spirits ...
I am loathe to make predictions in this batshit era British politics is currently travelling through, so do not take what I am about to say as such. I have no idea who will follow Theresa May as Conservative Party leader, I really don't; I just think (and have had this confirmed by some in Westminster) the following contender is a genuine possibility. The Tories were shaken by the result of the general election and are looking for someone of genuine prime ministerial quality for when next a general election comes around. And the man many are now pinning their ...
Network Rail has provided an update on the closure of the A49 at Onibury (see below). The work is on track and the line is expected to reopen at 6am next Monday, 10 July. Traffic is flowing well around the local diversions. Why a weight restriction is not in place on the B4365, I do not know. There are far too many HGVs going through Culmington, which should have been designated a light traffic route. There is obvious confusion about which divrsion route to take in both Craven Arms and Ludlow. This morning a truck stopped on the Sheet Road ...
Dodington Parish Council are inviting local residents to a Community Picnic at Woodchester Play Area to help them plan improvements. At the moment the Parish Council only runs the infants play area, but they are negotiating to take over the larger play equipment and the open space from South Gloucestershire Council. "We would like local people's ideas on how to make the play area better" said Cllr Paul Hulbert "So we're running a 'Picnic, Play and Plan' session for residents - and their children! - to come along and meet us" "We would like to hear from people of all ...
The Grenfell Tower fire has focused attention on the extent of the crisis in the UK social housing system. Reverend Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty comments: There are rows of empty "investments" in London, and the four big builders have 600,000 unused plots in their land banks. The Liberal Democrat 2017 Manifesto included genuinely progressive housing proposals a new national Housing and Infrastructure Development Bank, increasing housebuilding to 300,000 homes a year allowing councils to end the right to buy, lifting the borrowing cap and targeting "buy to leave" empty homes with a 200% council tax. penalising land-banking with ...
From Sheena Wellington : Lunchtime Recital - Simon Chadwick - harp Wighton Heritage Centre, Central LibraryWednesday 5th July from 1.15pm - 1.45pm Harpist Simon Chadwick will bring the big Irish harp to play a selection of "Irish Scotch and Welch Airs". This is a new programme put together for the Museum of the University of St Andrews, for their "Victorian visions" exhibition. Simon is investigating how medieval tunes were re-imagined through the 19th century harp tradition in Scotland and Ireland. Admission Free.
The Independent reports on a quite astonishing admission by Dominic Cummings, the Vote Leave campaign director that leaving the EU may be "an error". They say that Mr. Cummings described the referendum as a "dumb idea" before other ideas had been tried to win back powers from Brussels. He also warned that Brexit is shaping up to be a "guaranteed debacle", without big changes in Whitehall to deliver a successful negotiation. Tim Farron is quite right when he says: "Dominic Cummings has let the cat out of the bag. This is the man who slapped the £350m NHS lie on ...
