An interesting innovation has gone live in Gateshead: the website for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital A&E and Blaydon Urgent Treatment Centre now gives up-to-the-minute waiting times. Anyone wanting to be seen can now have an idea of how long they will need to wait. The aim is to encourage people with non-urgent illnesses to go to more appropriate centres, such as pharmacies and walk-in centres.
It struck me as odd that Theresa May should visit Japan with the hope of winning a trade deal shortly after the final details of the Japan-EU free trade deal were being sorted. But the Brexit camp now wants to apply a cloned version of this deal to the UK and Japan. So much for all the wonderful, improved trade deals that Brexit would give us. Vince Cable's suggestion that International Trade
Some people say it's a strange place. I can't see it myself.
Nick Harvey, the former Liberal Democrat MP for North Devon, was appointed as interim chief executive of the party. That makes it interesting to revisit an article he wrote for Liberator in November 2015 on the party's collapse at that year's general election. I quoted a key passage when I blogged about it at the time: Somehow, though stuck at 8% in national polls, we clung to the idea that incumbency would save MPs (even though it hadn't saved excellent councillors and MEPs). Our biggest mistake in responding to that finding was to offer up a diet of backward-looking self-congratulation ...
This morning Radio Four Extra broadcast a programme from 1947 that will be of interest whether you are interested in social history or the history of broadcasting. The School on the Moor paints a portrait of Bolventor School, which had 24 pupils aged from five to fifteen and two teachers: headmaster Reginald Bennetts and his wife ("Master" and "Teacher" to everybody). As the BBC blurb for the programme explains: In this experimental programme, BBC engineers had set-up microphones around this tiny remote village school in the middle of Bodmin Moor in the autumn of 1947. Microphones and cables were left ...
Former North Devon Lib Dem MP Nick Harvey has been appointed as the Liberal Democrats' interim Chief Executive following the departure of Tim Gordon earlier this month. Nick has wide-ranging experience in PR, human resources, management and delivering change. He comes from a City background, having been an account director at Dewe Rogerson, and worked at Profile PR and Westminster Consortium. He will take up his new role next week on the back of recent experience at Global Partners, where he was an adviser on Egypt and Jordan. He has also been seeking to widen access to the law as ...
The former MP for North Devon, Nick Harvey, has been appointed as interim Chief Executive at Liberal Democrat HQ following the departure of Tim Gordon. Nick Harvey said of his appointment, I am greatly looking forward to supporting Vince Cable as our new Leader, and hope that working closely together we can further revive Lib Dem fortunes. The party has shown great resilience. Now we have a real opportunity to begin the process of moving forwards again. British politics has never been in greater need of the Liberal Democrats. There is a major gap which only we can fill, not ...
South Glos Council has launched a consultation as part of a feasibility study into options for a new motorway junction, 18a, to link the M4 with the A4174 ring road. The consultation runs until Monday 16 October. This could have a major impact on our area so it's vital everyone has their say. The Conservative-run council are looking at two options: Western route This route would use Westerleigh Road and the A4174 ring road adjacent to Lyde Green in Emersons Green. This would mean the new Junction 18a could be located to the north west of the Lyde Green development. ...
I was killing time between meeting on Monday so I popped into the National Portrait Gallery. I have to confess that one of the reasons I chose that above other central London venues was because it is one of the few places that will accept my Brompton bike into their left luggage complete with its Harris Tweed bag. I went to see the BP Portrait Awards for 2017 Exhibition, after checking that Mary Wollstonecraft had made it safely back from her loan visit to Russia. I have viewed the annual exhibition in previous years when I have been waiting for ...
There is very little decent media coverage of Brexit here in Britain. Mainly it is two groups of opinionated people trying to annoy each other, or at least to keep up their own side's annoyance levels with the other side. Actually I have more time for the British negotiating effort than most Remainers, and more ... Continue reading The most important Brexit negotiation will be amongst the British people →
The government has announced the terms of reference for its review into building regulations and fire safety, commissioned following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. An interim report will be submitted in the autumn with a final report due in spring 2018. Wera Hobhouse MP, Liberal Democrat Communities and Local Government Spokesperson, commented: "This review of building regulations is long overdue. "The current fire safety rules have been shown to be utterly outdated and inadequate, leading to tragic consequences. "The fact highly flammable material was approved for use on high-rise blocks across the country shows just how flawed the current system ...
Following reports that ministers are now seeking a "cut and paste Brexit", whereby Britain would simply have the same trade deals with other countries as we currently enjoy from inside the EU, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable has said that the government's Brexit strategy now "defies all logic". Vince Cable said: "Brexiteers promised a new dawn of improved trade deals across the world. But rather than jet-setting round the globe, Liam Fox might as well be left in a room with a photocopier. "The government's Brexit strategy now defies all logic. It is not even asking Japan for a bespoke ...
Big Ben has been silenced. At some point in the next 6 years, MPs and Lords must leave the Palace of Westminster too, with renovation needed in the face of 'impending crisis'. A lot has been written about where parliament might go temporarily, with some even suggesting a few years out of London. But we need to be more ambitious than a mere temporary move of parliamentarians. We should permanently move both parliament and 'Whitehall' to Manchester. Undoubtedly, political parties, think tanks, charities, much of the printed and broadcast press, quangos, embassies and lobbyists would eventually follow, as well as ...
Wed 30th
11:25
Liverpool City Region's Rights of Way Improvement Plan – Your views wanted by Merseytravel
Footpath off Bridges Lane in Sefton Village The link above takes you to the web site of Merseytravel and the consultation documents they would like responses to – please have a look if you like cycling or walking locally off road. Gate and stile from Butchers Lane in Aughton to Millbank in Maghull. I sit of the Sefton Rights of Way Group representing Lydiate and Maghull Councils so this is matter of interest to me, I am also a regular walker and cyclist. My view is that what we need to get across to policy makers throughout the Liverpool ...
Tue, 12:56: RT @FrankMulqueen: Ah reality...... a cruel mistress #Brexit https://t.co/x1MTaz0n1V Tue, 16:05: RT @JenniferMerode: The foreign secretary is an international joke. Almost every line is devastating. https://t.co/KVJYbFarwl https://t.co... Tue, 19:11: RT @JenniferMerode: Whisper it, but we didn't need to leave the EU to put up a stand promoting British exports at the Brussels eurostar ter... Tue, 20:31: RT @djmgaffneyw4: He knows whereof he speaks. https://t.co/DuKXtLRqZG Tue, 20:48: More good analysis. https://t.co/usa5lPtr0Q Tue, 20:53: Not quite: First basketball simulation game written in BASIC by Charles R. Bacheller in May, 1967. https://t.co/SuDxIPA8YG Tue, 21:03: RT @CharlesTannock: a lot of brexiteer papers ...
James woke up feeling groggy. His mouth was dry and his body felt stiff. The room was dark. He rolled over and grabbed his phone off the bed stand and found he had three missed calls and five messages from Xander, Harris and Amelia. He texted them and Shaun, asking them to meet at the Metropolitan Cathedral in an hour. He climbed out of bed, stripped down and took a long, hot shower before dressing in his grey jeans, blue t-shirt and leather jacket. He looked at his watch and noted that it was half seven and that he'd slept ...
I have returned, as General Macarthur might have said. I was only gone a week to the calmer fields of Picardy, but I feel kike I've been AWOL from the commentariat-sphere for months. Nothing has changed and the slow realisation of this is seeping in, which is always a disappointment. It is also odd that [...] The post So how do you foster genuine leadership in the UK? appeared first on Radix.
Vince Cable has said that Theresa May's visit to Japan has descended into farce before it has even begun. This was after the government briefed that a post-Brexit Britain would seek a trade deal with Japan based on the existing EU-Japan deal. He put a reality check on the government's spin: Theresa May's trip to Japan to gain a trade deal was already of questionable value because there can be no fresh agreements with other countries until we leave the EU. But this staggering statement by the government just adds a whole new level of absurdity to their negotiating strategy. ...
WestFest is holding its 2017 Annual General Meeting at Blackness Library at 7pm on Wednesday 6th September. Following another great WestFest Big Sunday in June, the WestFest team will be starting organisation of next year's event and all are welcome to attend the AGM and help deliver this superb annual event.
Those who believe that MPs might have better things to do than hold a vigil for the chimes of Big Ben, may be heartened to learn that the obsession with the clock tower is not unique to our era. I am currently coming to the end of Roy Jenkins' extremely erudite 631 page account of the life of William Gladstone. In my reading I came upon a rather intriguing footnote. Some research on Google soon confirmed, as seen in this extract from the New Yorker that Lord Curzon once requested that the chimes of Big Ben should be silenced at ...
The Son of Saxon, the company behind the Dog Hangs Well and the Ludlow Ledger, has published more details of its plans for 13 High Street (17/03922/LBC). The pub sign is a work of art in the style of mid-nineteenth century animal painter John Frederick Herring Snr. It features a blood bay Grand National winner owned by a 1930s Ludlow mayor and bookmaker. The rest of the treatment of the exterior is suitably traditional, boasting "noted ales", along with pale, best and mild. John Frederick Herring Snr was himself a painter of inn signs. Employed as a night coach driver, ...
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable has said that Theresa May's visit to Japan has descended into farce before it has even begun. This was after the government briefed that a post-Brexit Britain would seek a trade deal with Japan based on the existing EU-Japan deal. Vince Cable said: "Theresa May's trip to Japan to gain a trade deal was already of questionable value because there can be no fresh agreements with other countries until we leave the EU. "But this staggering statement by the government just adds a whole new level of absurdity to their negotiating strategy. It is now ...
