Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 487th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (27 August – 2 September, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Thin pickings for the ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Poor man. The spam factory and the vast creamery at Minsterley were too much for him. He might have shown us the station master's house though.That's what I wrote when posting the second part of Holden Webster's exploration of the remains of the Minsterley branch in Shropshire. That house turns out not to be so easy to photograph. It is now a private dwelling, but quite where the residents get on and off their land is not obvious. Anyway, Six Bells Junction has a nice 1959 photo of Minsterley station in decay.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
Sun 3rd
20:09

Sunday reading

Current Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month) Synners, by Pat Cadigan Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman How The Doctor Changed My Life, ed. Simon Guerrier Last books finished Pelléas and Mélisande, by Maurice Maeterlinck The Fall of Arthur, by J.R.R. Tolkien The Blue Bird, by Maurice Maeterlinck Next books The Famished Road, by Ben Okri The Dancers at the End of Time, by Michael Moorcock Life During Wartime, by Paul Cornell

Sun 3rd
20:09

Six of the Best 722

"As far as Trump, I would suspect they have [kompromat], because they've denied it," le Carré says. "If they have it and they've set Trump up, they'd say, 'Oh no, we haven't got anything.' But to Trump they're saying, 'Aren't we being kind to you?'" John le Carré and Ben Macintyre talk to Julie Miller about Trump and Russia. Iain Brodie Browne finds Norman Lamb done in acrylic and hanging in central London. Robert Service reviews a new biography of Mikhail Gorbachev. Paris has taken the farm out of the field and planted parts of it on its rooftops, reports ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

After little more than a year in post, Lord Price, the former head of Waitrose, has resigned as a minister in Liam Fox's Department for International Trade. Mail Online tells us: Lord Price announced he would write a weekly column in the Daily Telegraph. His previous book, The Foolish King, focused on teaching children how to play chess.The Amazon blurb for The Foolish King runs: LONG, LONG AGO, when kings ruled the land, dragons filled the sky and magic still existed, two small children stumbled upon the game of chess. ... Join PIP and HOLLY on a magical fairy-tale adventure ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

A few photographs from today's visit to Calke Abbey – the "un-stately home", as the National Trust calls it. The post Calke Abbey – The Un-stately Home appeared first on ten pence piece.

Posted by tim on ten pence piece

Fair Isle – Living on the Edge, is a couple of documentaries from the BBC taking a detailed look at life on Fair Isle, the most remote permanently inhabited island in the British Isles, with a population of just 55. It is absolutely fascinating – what a beautiful island and an extraordinary community! The documentaries ... Continue reading A detailed look at life on Fair Isle

Posted by paulwalternewbury on

Tom Brake calls on Eurosceptic MPs to back Parliamentary Sovereignty screams the press release from LDHQ. What's that all about? The Tory hardcore aren't going to listen to a damn thing a Lib Dem says. Not while the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Basically, he's saying to them – you spent the referendum banging on about our Parliament getting its powers back, now it's up to you to make sure it does. In a letter to the 21 Brexiteer signatories of this pre-ferefendum missive in the Telegraph who are still MPs, Tom says: I am ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sun 3rd
12:44

Thank you Colin

Colin Douglas is to stand down as chairman of the Sunniside History Society at the AGM this Tuesday. He has been chairman of the Society for 15 years and has steered it to be one of the most successful local history organisations in the area. Sadly, Colin's health has not been too good recently, therefore contributing to his decision to retire. We had our last executive with him in the chair on

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

Vince Cable has called for a parliamentary debate on the situation with North Korea as the country conducts its sixth nuclear missile test. He said: This alleged advancement North Korea's nuclear weapons programme only strengthens the need to for an urgent diplomatic response to the crisis. There is no military solution that does not risk the lives of millions, and no doubt that Trump's war of words with Kim Jong-un has only served to heighten tensions. Liberal Democrats are clear that the way forward requires engaging with China and other countries in the region to deescalate tensions. The government must ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice
YouGov

Some sources suggest that Royal Blood are the coolest band in Britain. So naturally I am familiar with their oeuvre.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Cllr Malcolm Kennedy, and the Lady Mayoress welcomed us to the Town Hall and waved the flag for World Merit 10 days ago, I wrote a blog telling you a bit about World Merit and ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

Writing in the Financial Times, Nick Clegg gives his assessment of where we are with Brexit at the moment. He is unimpressed with the Government's Brexit papers, describing them as technocratic, insubstantial and lacking in leadership. He also sees Labour's so called great shift on the single market as nothing more than a statement of the obvious. The EU doesn't escape criticism either, as he points out that they are being way too rigid on the timetable – but that, as he adds, is something that could easily have been foreseen. There is a profound misreading among British negotiators of ...

Posted by NewsHound on Liberal Democrat Voice

Jane Day will be known to many people as a former friendly helpful local councillor, as Mayor of Maghull (2002/2003),as a leading light of Maghull Folk Club and as a member of Lord Street Parade choir. Jane has been a friend of mine for 20 years or more and when she recently announced that she was moving down to Ware in Hertfordshire to be near her daughter I thought something had to be done to mark her many years involvement in the local community. And it transpired that another friend, Andrew Blackburn, was having similar thoughts. After a bit of ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus
Sun 3rd
11:00

My tweets

Sat, 12:56: RT @DaveTomHodges: @SurreyCricBlog @FraserNelson How could anyone have known the EU wouldn't give us the deal we want? Sat, 14:40: Maeterlinck: Pell�as et M�lisande, the Blue Bird, The Life of the Bee https://t.co/SpGIVcyi9h Sat, 16:05: RT @jonworth: Every time David Davis has a whinge about schedule of #Brexit talks, remind him: HE AGREED the sequence in June! https://t.co... Sat, 20:22: Thread: More good Brexiteer analysis. (Can't believe I'm saying that.) #fb https://t.co/Tyv2cvcUHX Sat, 20:48: RT @Feorlean: Somebody should tell Fox that @GovUK agreed in June to exactly the timetabled process he is now denouncing.... https://t.co/R... Sun, 10:43: RT ...

miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 02-09-2017 I posted The Blood is the Life for 02-09-2017 to my dreamwidth blog [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

James lay on Xander's bed; finishing off a short story he'd written in his journal. The story was about an eighteen-year-old lad getting his first car, a dark blue Ford Fiesta and racing around to see his mates and his girlfriend for the day and taking them on a road trip around Lancashire. But just as he's about to get home, he's hit by a Land Rover and totals his car. The kid is fine and despite being distraught that his car has been wrecked, he knows that the day he's just had with the car was one of the ...

Posted by Matthew Metcalf on Matthew 'Mec' Metcalf - The Mec Journal

Vince Cable has set out how the process of Brexit could be stopped, saying that there was a "strong possibility" of a further referendum on the facts. The FT has the story from an event they ran this weekend: In a debate at the FT Weekend Festival held at Kenwood House in North London on Saturday, Mr Cable said: "I think there is more than a possibility that Brexit may never happen." He added: "The balance of probability is still that it does, but there is a strong possibility of it being stopped because tensions within and between major parties ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

There is a lot of crap being said in Westminster at present. On Radio 4 today, someone, I don't who as I was only half-listening at the time, said that should Theresa May fail to get the Repeal Bill through, "Jeremy Corbyn automatically becomes prime minister". This is unbelievable drivel. Imagine for a moment that May announces to the nation that the Tory-DUP agreement has hit a snag, and that as they cannot form a majority in parliament, Jeremy Corbyn has a fortnight to do so himself. There is a 0% chance that Corbyn could put together a government in ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

Commenting on the latest comments from international trade secretary Liam Fox, that we will not be "blackmailed" by the EU, Lib Dem Leader Vince Cable said: "It's far from clear how it helps the country to have this war of words continue, now fuelled by Dr Fox's latest comments."This confrontational approach suggests the government is dangerously relaxed about a collapse in negotiations, regardless of the very real risks to our economy if we crash out of Europe."It has become clear from this week's embarrassing trade mission to Japan, and to India last year, that these countries have very little interest ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats
eUKhost
Sun 3rd
09:18

Writers' Houses

Yesterday I was at the Mermaid Inn in Rye in Sussex to address the annual gathering of The Friends of Tilling, one of two societies that celebrate the work of E.F. Benson and in particular the Mapp and Lucia novels. It was a gorgeous late summer's day — the perfect weather to visit nearby Lamb [...]

Posted by jonathanfryer on Jonathan Fryer

Anybody who thought that the Tories could not split any more on the issue of Europe and party leadership is underestimating the fractious nature of modern day Conservatism. And it seems that by Theresa May letting her colleagues know that she may well want to fight the next General Election as leader after all, she has precipitated a further division. The Observer reports that the Prime Minister may face a growing Tory revolt over her leadership as it emerged that Remain-supporting Conservative MPs are being told by party whips that they will be seen as "supporting Jeremy Corbyn" if they ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

Vince Cable is certainly getting out there on social media at the moment. He's tweeting several times a day. He's on Facebook and, like everyone else these days, on Instagram It was his latest post on Instagram that surprised me – announcing that he's going to be on Snapchat, a medium most commonly used by the young people I know, from 15th September. The post announces: Add my Snapchat and get the behind the scenes look as we fight against Brexit, you can add the account now ready for when it goes live on the 15th! #snapchat#conference#libdem#liberal#brexit#LiberalDemocrat This is either ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

From Sheena Wellington : Wighton Heritage Centre, Central Library - Lunchtime Recital with Joe Aitken, singerWednesday 6th September at 1.15pm Joe Aitken is a favourite guest singer at festivals in Scotland, Ireland and England. Hailing from Kirriemuir, and fresh from another round of fine performances at its famous TMSA Festival, he brings his rich warm voice to the Wighton to start the new season of Lunchtime Recital. He is a fine singer of traditional songs which he delivers in his own inimitable fashion. He's also a great exponent of the North East bothy style of singing. He has won the ...