There was unity and division on the issue of devolution in the North East at the last full council meeting in Gateshead. When introducing the cabinet report, Labour Council Leader Martin Gannon informed members that it was too late for Parliament to pass any orders before the summer recess to take the necessary steps towards a separate devolution settlement for the three authorities north of
Think your job's bad? Imagine gathering leeches by walking into a pond and letting them attach to your legs.
No s***, Brexit This week, two significant individuals have told various truths about the impending catastrophe that is Britain's withdrawal from the European Union and have both faced ridicule and scorn for daring to do so. Firstly Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, expressed the statement of the obvious that uncertainty due to Brexit is already having a negative effect on the UK's economy. Well, no s*** Sherlock. The growth forecast has been revised down and the pound has fallen. Consumer confidence has also taken a hit. This comes as no surprise at all to those of ...
Brexit enthusiasts claimed during the referendum that the UK can take control of its fisheries if people voted to leave. All those British fish living in UK territorial waters must now be feeling a bit let down by Michael Gove's latest pronouncement. Instead of sacrificing themselves to the nets of fine, British fishermen, as promised, the Environment Secretary has suggested that all those fishy
Fri 4th
19:31
Svalbard Diary, Day 8: in which your gallant correspondent develops an unexpected yearning...
It was surprisingly warm, which for anyone who had packed as if auditioning for a remake of "Scott of the Antarctic" was likely to be problematic. Me, I was dressed as if for a gentle stroll across the fields to Tesco at Stowmarket. And, of course, apart from the absence of polar bears, the conditions are pretty similar. Our morning excursion was at Hornsund, at the south-western tip of Spitsbergen proper, in search of the auk colony. This meant hopping into the zodiacs again. I've made this sound pretty uneventful, but perhaps I ought to explain how it works. A ...
Fri 4th
19:30
Telford, Hereford, Worcester - almost everyone takes the new pound coins in parking machines but us
It will be weeks before Shropshire Council coonverts Ludlow's parking machines to accept the new £1 coin. Yesterday, I heard from Hereford and Telford and Wrekin councils. They confirm that all car parking machines in their areas accept the new £1 coins. They join Worcester council, which was boasting that all its charging machines had been converted at the beginning of March. Machines in Stafford were revamped last summer and you'll have no trouble with the new coinage in Powys. Alas, Shropshire is way behind. Yesterday, it issued a vague promise that its payment machines will be converted later in ...
Commenting on the news that train companies have committed to introducing a new independent ombudsman Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Secretary Jenny Randerson said: "Whilst this is welcome news for passengers, the government need to now make sure this is in place as quickly as possible. Commuters are fed up with poor service and there can be no excuses for delays in establishing this ombudsman system as one already exists that could simply be expanded"
Liberal Democrats have reacted with bafflement to the statement by Michael Gove that British waters would continue to be fished by EU trawlers post-Brexit. Gove made his experiences of the fishing industry growing up in Aberdeen a major reason for his support for Brexit. Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake MP said: "Yet another lie of the Leave campaign has been exposed by the Environment Secretary. "Michael Gove chose to put stopping EU fishing in British waters front and centre of his campaign to leave the EU, yet is now telling Danish Fishermen the opposite. "We saw a promise of ...
For once, I agree with Nigel Farage. He said that all young people should go to see the film Dunkirk; I would only a that all older people would benefit from seeing it too. But perhaps our reasons for recommending the film are different. Farage doubtless feels it fits into his Brexit narrative of Britain can [...]
In my capacity as a member of the Financial Advisory Committee of the ALDE Party, I have the great pleasure of working closely with Sabine Dechamps, Head of the Administration Unit. And so I was intrigued to discover from our map of Svalbard that there is an area on the eastern side of Spitsbergen called Sabine Land. It is utterly unlike Sabine though, in that it is bleak and austere, covered in rather a lot of ice and totally unpopulated. It must be nice to have somewhere named after you, even so...
Clive Lewis, David Lammy, along with trade unionists and Momentum members have written an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn, asking the Labour leader to accept continuing freedom of movement post-Brexit as the party's official position. Not, for clarity, that freedom of movement should be swallowed as part of a trade deal; but that freedom of movement should be defended for its own sake: "Migrants are not to blame for falling wages, insecurity, bad housing and overstretched public services. These are the product of decades of underinvestment, deregulation, privatisation, and the harshest anti-union laws in Europe. On the contrary, migrant workers ...
Well, you have to, don't you. There they are, inheritors of an economic tradition which suggests that they can only use interest rates to tweak the economy – and they can't. Their decision yesterday to keep interest rates at a historic low seems to flag up their fatal dilemma. Either they raise interest rates to [...] The post Why you have to pity the poor Bank of England appeared first on Radix.
The Swalwell Community Festival will be taking place on Saturday 12th August. I will be taking some of our goats there for people to see. I'm not sure which ones will be going but Snow (the white billy in the photo above) will probably be one of them. So if you see a strange person walking around the festival with goats on leads, it will be me! Be ready to snap your photos!
Two schools in Blaydon constituency have scored well in recent Ofsted inspections. Well done Kibblesworth Academy. The primary school has improved from "Requires improvement" to "Good". Behaviour and personal development scored "Outstanding". Meanwhile, St Mary's RC School in Whickham has scored "Good" - a repeat of the rating gained in 2013. Congratulations to all staff, children and parents.
Embed from Getty Images We'd like to quash the rumour that we got fed up with Mark Valladares here at LDV Towers and therefore banished him to the most northerly inhabited achipelago in the world. There is simply no truth whatsoever in these whisperings. Seriously, Mark Valladares is a long-standing Liberal Democrat Voice editorial team member. On the team, we really do value his calm, wise and supportive counsel. He is also known as @honladymark on Twitter, and as a Liberal Bureaucrat, Creeting St Peter parish councillor and Liberal globe trotter. There was a place called "Spitzbergen" which used to ...
Thu, 12:56: The man who has focused on one word for 23 years https://t.co/p2X9voUO79 The Macedonia name dispute. Thu, 16:05: Brussels fears Britain's 'Brexit chaos' part of cunning plan https://t.co/pfXYnEfRdU Well, some in Brussels. I disagree. Thu, 16:24: RT @IanDunt: The Brexiters are now tweeting that Politico article about UK shambles being a cunning plan. That's how desperate things are. Thu, 18:30: Hooray!!!! https://t.co/csOLyBLlNY Thu, 20:48: #684: My boss brought a machete to a disciplinary meeting with staff. - Captain Awkward https://t.co/JjXxdp2FEL *jaw drop* Thu, 20:57: Robert Hardy, Harry Potter actor, dies at 91 https://t.co/WLmtDUz9Nq Aww. Fri, 06:57: RT @AWEichenlaub: ...
Tighter border controls should not apply when I'm going on holiday, insists angry Brexiter Once again, NewsThump a little too close to the bone [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Find your bare minimum and stick to it Establish the least amount of work you can get away with per day and do not exceed it. For example, three emails and a colourful graph. Do not forget that you have a job 24% of home workers can't remember who they work for and what they are supposed to be doing. Write your employer's name and job title on a Post-It note and stick it to the wall above your computer - this is a vital reference tool. Alternate internet and television It's easy to waste the day looking at Youtube ...
This is about some holiday season viewing which may be of interest to readers – rather than an article trying to make a political point. "Who do you think you are" covers television presenter Emma Willis' family history in an episode available on BBC iPlayer for the next 29 days. It is worth a watch. The programme looks into Willis' roots in Birmingham – amongst animal horn and hair. One of her ancestors was a manufacturer of hair brushes and glue-based sizing using animal products. She then travels to Ireland. First, she is horrified to discover that one her ancestors ...
Fri 4th
09:04
Ainsdale Railway Station – It's going to have a Police Station on its platform like Town Green...
The Southport Visiter has the story on its web site – see link above That Ainsdale Station is being upgraded is not new news but this aspect of it caught my eye not least because I had blogged about Town Green Station on the Liverpool – Ormskirk Line having Aughton Police Station on it only recently – 7th July. Here's a link to that previous posting:- Ainsdale Station has been in need of a refurb' for a long time now and I recall Cllr. Lynne Thompson backing the campaign for the much needed works quite some time ago ...
I may have mentioned my enthusiasm for walrus(es) already. Indeed, when I grow up, I want to be a walrus. There were more walrus in our future, as we headed for Cape Lee and the known walrus haulout there. Into the zodiac again, and off we went. "Walrus off of our bow!", someone shouted. The walrus bobbed below the surface... We scanned the water. And then, it reappeared... eight feet away, so close you could count its whiskers. I was enthralled. Our guide wasn't so keen. Apparently, walrus are known, in their enthusiasm, to puncture zodiacs with their tusks, and ...
As a local councillor I deal daily with complaints and issues around refuse collection, recycling, fly-tipping and litter. It seems to me that local councils and government put the emphasis on the consumer and local resident to protect the environment and recycle, without making much effort themselves to reduce the amount of waste in the first place. It is for that reason that I welcome the conclusion of think tank, Green Alliance, reported in the Guardian, that plastic marine litter could be cut significantly if the government adopted a bottle deposit scheme as part of five key actions to tackle ...
In recent weeks, Eastern Europeans have appeared on Ludlow's streets. They are said to be Romanian and sit on Church Street and Tower Street. They beg with empty coffee cups. These beggars are not homeless in a conventional sense. They are clean and have no baggage or sleeping bag. They arrive and depart Ludlow by car. But the people involved could still be vulnerable. What should we do? From what I know so far, this is begging as a form of work, not as a way of coping with homelessness. West Mercia Police tell me there are similar begging operations ...
I have called on Dundee City Council to consider additional or alternative uses for the Technopole site in the West End (see photo below) that has sat largely empty for more than the previous decade. The site runs to the east of Annfield Road from Blackness Road in the north to Hawkhill to the south. Funded originally to establish biotechnology, creative industries and digital media operations, there is some business use of the site but much of it has not been developed and sits empty and, in parts, overgrown. Following constituent concerns about the lack of progress in getting the ...
Six council by-elections this week, with two defences each for Conservatives, Labour and Ukip. The party gaining seats so far is Labour, with one gain each from Conservatives and Ukip: Marine (Worthing) result: LAB: 47.4% (+27.8) CON: 38.8% (-6.4) LDEM: 11.3% (+1.1) GRN: 2.5% (-6.2) No UKIP as previous. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) August 3, 2017
