So I went to Church Langton churchyard to pay my respects to J.W. Logan. I was sorry to see that one of the other Logan family monuments has been damaged, but please that a couple of plaques inside the church that a family member has recently contributed to restoration there. But the structure in the photograph above is the remains of the Hanbury family mausoleum. I have blogged about William Hanbury and his ambitions for Church Langton before. John Throsby saw the mausoleum in 1790: Near the above, in a seat, is a rude pile of bricks which incloses the ...
Hands still hurting a bit, and the heatwave making it impossible for me to think. Will try to get the last of the Who posts up tomorrow, but no promises.
Mayor Joseph Anderson. The master of bluff and obfuscation This is a blog with a difference. I am actually writing it during a council meeting in the Town Hall. You might think that I should have better things to do ... Continue reading →
Lord Bonkers tells me he no longer shows Belted George Galloways - "Not a reliable breed." Saturday Years ago I spoke with a red-faced farmer at some county show or other - I must have been there with my Belted George Galloways. He complained to me that the local vicar's daughter was in the habit of running through his wheat fields and doing awful damage. I now realise that the obnoxious child must have been Theresa May. For the farmer said to me: "I wouldn't mind, but she keeps changing direction." Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10. ...
"The Chagos Islands, a beautiful archipelago of seven atolls in the Indian Ocean, comprise of more than 60 individual tropical islands of sun swept beaches and palm trees. Yet, for nearly 50 years the local Chagossian people, known as the Illois, have been denied the right of return. Their story is one of expulsion, lies, betrayal and severe poverty." Ollie Taylor on a dark episode in postwar history. Y Cneifiwr on Carmarthenshire County Council's persecution of the blogger Jacqui Thompson. "More than 500 streets across England have been temporarily closed for play over the past few years, with support from ...
I have to say I'm feeling sad tonight. Two Summers ago, I worked hard to elect Tim Farron as our leader. I'd hoped he'd be there for one if not two Parliaments, at least a decade. I felt that the party needed his Tiggerish energy and passion even if his 100,000 members target scared me slightly. Tim inspired us to pick ourselves up, raise our eyes and fight. He took on the fight for the most vulnerable, speaking up for the thousands of refugees fleeing war in Syria. He made it his mission to present a coherent case for unaccompanied ...
We'll all have seen those BBC pay figures today. How senior executives must have wept into their prosecco when Chris Evans proved to be such a failure on Top Gear. On one level, you could be appalled at someone getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to read the news, or spout childish banalities on the radio. On the other, you can recognise that if they didn't pay those rates, nobody we've ever heard of would be on the BBC – and as soon as we had heard of them, they'd be off. Given the general high quality of the ...
I know, the news about the conflict between Cabinet ministers is now, well, no longer news. However, as this blog does not specialise in breaking stories, I feel little regret about being considerably late on this one. I suppose I'll start with the row over Philip Hammond's reported comment that 'even a woman' could drive a train. ... Continue reading My thoughts on the Cabinet in disarray
The list of Brexit campaigners done for breaking the rules is getting lengthy. Following the record £12,000 fine for breaches of spending rules, the pair of £1,000 fines for other offences, the company fined £50,000 for illegal text messages and the 11 anti-EU campaign groups struck off for breaking referendum rules, there's now another £1,500 fine on a different Brexit campaigner: The Electoral Commission has fined Mr Henry Meakin, a registered campaigner in the EU referendum, £1,500 for failing to submit his spending return on time. It is an offence not to deliver a spending return by the due date. ...
Wed 19th
16:29
LibLink: Miriam Gonzalez Durantez: How to beat the ticking Brexit clock: let British business leader...
There are few people in this country who have as much experience in negotiating international trade deals as Miriam Gonzalez Durantez. In her Made in Spain book published last year, she drops casually into a recipe that she came across guacamole when she helped to negotiate the EU-Mexico trade agreement. She's written in the Guardian about the many dangerous mistakes that the Government is making in its approach to the EU negotiations. She has some scary observations about who is influencing these proceedings: British business leaders were asked to share the table with the Legatum Institute, a thinktank with unparalleled ...
At the beginning of the election campaign this year, Tim came to Edinburgh West one sunny Monday evening. He spoke brilliantly with a message that at that point in the campaign was just bang on. This is Tim at his best. More from that evening is here. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Wed 19th
14:58New party: An opportunity, an unhelpful distraction or a timely kick up our posterior?
A year ago Emmanuel Macron held is first political rally. 12 months on he sits firmly ensconced in the Elysee Palace and En Marche enjoy a comfortable majority in the Assemble Nationale.The obvious question this demands is whether, at a time when the gulf between the two main parties grows ever wider, there is an opportunity for a new centrist party to make a similar breakthrough here in the UK. Last week, the team that created the Lib Dem Newbie Facebook group put a poll asking members of the group a simple question: If a new liberal centre party were ...
At yesterdays meeting of Hertfordshire County Council parents from the NHS Nascot Lawn Respite Care home presented a petition with over 14,100 signatures seeking the commitment of the Country Council to do all in its power to ensure the continuing support and care even though the Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group had announced withdrawing the £600k [...]
Wed 19th
13:30LibLink: Layla Moran: If Philip Hammond thinks driving a train is so easy "even a woman can do it" m...
In an article for the Independent at the weekend, Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran took Philip Hammond to task for his alleged remark that driving a train is so easy "even a woman can do it." She pointed out that they can, but how many women do this highly paid job? The key fact from the latest Hammond row was glossed over, but it is the real scandal: that just 5.5 per cent of train drivers are women. And the average annual salary of a train driver is just shy of £50,000, way higher than most women earn ...
*Warning contains mild spoilers and copious anorakiness* As I have now seen Spider-Man: Homecoming, now seems like an apt time to update my ranking of the films and TV shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I fear that this will be the last time I am able to do something like this and have [...]
At midnight tonight, Tim Farron hands the mantel of Liberal Democrat Leadership to Vince Cable. We are looking at some of the best bits of his two year and four days in charge. Less than 3 weeks after being elected leader, Tim Farron went to Calais to see the refugee crisis for himself. As the humanitarian crisis worsened and the Tories ignored the dreadful suffering on our doorstep,, Tim, alone amongst UK wide party leaders, called for action. He was the first to go to Calais to see for himself what was going on. Here's how we brought you that ...
Tue, 12:56: Why Business Leaders Need to Read More Science Fiction https://t.co/cWJtdR4U6L @eliotpeper at @HarvardBiz explains. Tue, 18:53: RT @jonlis1: Relax everyone, it's just £22 billion compensation we might have to pay the builders of Hinkley Point when we leave Euratom, a... Tue, 19:00: RT @GoT_Tyrion: Cruising toward the weekend #PrepareForWinter https://t.co/WTJTjIF4mY Wed, 07:24: RT @premeesaurus: NO BAD IDEA NO HAVE THESE PEOPLE NEVER SEEN A SINGLE HORROR MOVIE https://t.co/WySoOFz0XG Wed, 10:45: RT @BreelyU: Proud APCOer today @apcoworldwide is ranked #3 Major US Operations & #1 in Public Affairs by @odwyerpr 2017! https://t.co/wCdo...
We'll provide the pizza, if you come and make some calls... followed of course by a trip to the pub! The phone bank makes a real difference, giving you the chance to encourage uncertain voters to make their voices heard, and provide real time feedback for the teams campaigning on the ground. It's also really important after the General Election that we continue to be successful in our local government by-election campaigns. Our next Give It A Go - Phoning evening is Thursday 3 August, between 6-8pm when we are focusing on gaining two seats from the Conservatives. We'll provide ...
Surely even this Brexit inclined Tory Government and their Labour Party Brexit allies cannot miss the irony of us leaving the EU at a time when the benefits of remaining for ordinary working people are becoming more and more obvious. First the EU abolish mobile phone roaming charges for the many UK citizens who like to holiday on the continent, enabling us to make calls, send texts and use the internet without any extra charge, and now they have effectively got rid of those extra charges that are added whenever we pay for something with a credit card. Of course ...
Tonight at midnight, Tim Farron hands over the reins of Liberal Democrat power to Vince Cable. We're showing some of his best bits in his two years as leader. Here is his passionate, heartfelt first speech to Conference, given just days after the death of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi who was killed while crossing the Mediterranean as his family fled to what they hoped would be safety in Europe. This is what I wrote about it at the time. Today, though, he took the tried and tested formula for leaders' speeches. You know the Rules, where they slag off ...
Monetary systems have to address conflicting problems which make any design a compromise. A monetary system needs to make sure that the quantity of money approximately matches the level of economic activity. This was the failing of the gold standard, when there was often a shortage of money as the levels of gold in the [...] The post The crazy way we create money now appeared first on Radix.
Wed 19th
06:00
Proposed new signage for The Wheatsheaf will damage the historic character of Lower Broad Street
Pubco and brewer Marston's is applying to replace the signage on The Wheatsheaf with modern signs. They would suit any clone town centre anywhere in England. They do not suit historic Ludlow and will damage the historic character of Lower Broad Street. The proposals With the Broadgate, The Wheatsheaf frames one of Ludlow's most famous vistas. It has been photographed by countless thousands of tourists and painted by hundreds of artists. The views below date from 1826 and 1962. Henry Bryan Zeigler 1826 Frances Frith c. 1870-90 (V&A) Postcard c. 1900 Postcard c. 1930 Postcard 1962 Today, The Wheatsheaf looks ...
