Down in Bournemouth the Glee Club at the Liberal Democrat Conference is underway. So it is time to share with you Lord Bonkers' foreword to the new Liberator Songbook. Bonkers HallTel. Rutland 7 What with so many people joining the Liberal Democrats in the past year, it occurs to me that many of you will be attending the Glee Club for the first time. So let me address myself to you 'virgins' in particular. Don't worry: It's Meant To Be Like This. If you wish to enjoy the evening to the utmost, my advice is that you should buy a ...
Vince Cable's debut Conference speech as leader will be very different from Tim Farron's. We won't find him bouncing about the stage. His style is quieter but no less compelling and interesting to listen to. Below we get a flavour of the thing he'll be saying tomorrow, establishing us firmly as the Party of Remain. On Brexit "A disaster looms. Brexit. The product of a fraudulent and frivolous campaign led by two groups of silly public school boys living their dormitory pillow fights. "And now, thanks to Boris Johnson, they have degenerated into a full-scale school riot with the head ...
The Liberal Democrats have demanded a pause in the roll-out of Universal Credit, which according to charities, councils and housing associations is a disaster in slow-motion. A mandatory six-week wait to receive a first payment is causing people serious difficulties, with over half of new claimants having to borrow money to make ends meet. Universal Credit's policy of making claimants pay landlords rent directly has also led to a major spike in rent arrears. The Liberal Democrats are demanding that the roll-out be halted until major reforms are put in place, including ensuring those moving to Universal Credit get an ...
At a meeting of the council this evening, Blake Pain has resigned as leader of the ruling Conservative group. It sounds as though he jumped before he was pushed. Here are tweets from two Liberal Democrat councillors at the meeting: I am listening to the Leader of @HarboroughDC Blake Pain resigning!— Simon Galton (@SimonGalton) September 18, 2017Blake Pain resigns as @HarboroughDC leader. Tory group wants new direction apparently.— Sarah Hill (@HarboroughEast) September 18, 2017
Liverpool's spare Mayor must consider his position after his appalling lack of judgement in this matter At 17.25 tonight all councillors in Liverpool received the notice below that the Chief Executive of Liverpool, Ged Fitzgerald, has finally been suspended from office ... Continue reading →
Jimi Hendrix, aged only 27, died on this day in 1970. Eighteen years later John James published a slim pamphlet of poems with the irresistible title The Ghost of Jimi Hendrix at Stokesay Castle. Irresistible to me at least. I bought his Collected Poems just to get hold of the poems it contained: you can't believe everything you see & hear can you the old heroes of desire sleeping where Handel slept it's a long way from the surf & the sign for victory equals peace the River Onny & its mood of total calm when you're dead you're made ...
Shooting in Rutland sounds more challenging than elsewhere. Perhaps we should introduce the Rutland partridge to North America? Thursday I did not take part in the Glorious Twelfth this year as it clashed with the Well-Behaved Orphans' annual holiday at Trescothick Bay in Cornwall. Bathing, running barefoot across the sand, burying Matron... I had a high old time of it. In any case, shooting grouse is not to my taste as the activity is now so commercialised. Grouse are bred in enormous numbers, overfed and then have little lead weights tied to their feet so they cannot fly too high. ...
Running round like a blue arsed fly. Have chaired first thing - health spokesperson Q&A with Liz Barker, Joan Walmsley, and Norman Lamb. I think it went quite well. Have also done MOAR aideing, HSLD AGM, and am now preparing for GLEEEEEEE. I voted on some stuff, but none of it was controversial. I have also undertaken to do a post (after conf) on How To Fill In a Speaker's Card, with examples. I am looking forward to doing this. Right, must dash... [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Willie gave one of the best speeches I'd heard him give. It was robust and clear – putting the Liberal Democrats back at the forefront of driving change in Scotland. The text is below. ' I have good news for you. Good news from Scotland. Last year in the Scottish Parliament Elections we won seats back from the SNP and won massive majorities in the Northern Isles. In May we won seats on Scottish councils and now have a hand in running four councils including Argyll and Bute led by our very own Aileen Morton. In June we went further ...
BREAKING: Can Vince Cable use Snapchat? (All the important questions) #LibDemconf pic.twitter.com/t3tcXFGYZ6 — Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 18, 2017 The Twitter account mentioned in the piece is @VinceCable. The grandson mentioned, Ayrton Cable, has already chalked up an incredibly impressive record of using digital skillfully.
I don't buy the Telegraph so have not actually read Boris Johnson's 4 000 word article on the joys to come if the UK leaves the EU. Most commentators seem to regard the article as either encouraging gung-ho optimism to cheer the troops, or gung-ho nonsense, high on enthusiasm and light on facts. Two phrases which to me stand out, and I assume they are in the original, are that the post-Brexit UK that Johnson envisages will be "low tax" and "low regulation." I find it frankly amazing, and deeply distressing, that any serious politician can offer these as a ...
BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.
Sultana's Dream, by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain Second paragraph: All on a sudden a lady stood before me; how she came in, I do not know. I took her for my friend, Sister Sara. সহসা আমার পার্শ্বে একটি ইউরোপীয় রমণীকে দণ্ডায়মানা দেখিয়া বিস্মিত হইলাম। তিনি কী প্রকারে আসিলেন, বুঝিতে পারিলাম না। তাঁহাকে আমার পরিচিতা 'ভগিনী সারা'। I spotted this as an interesting feminist story from India in 1905 - in fact, it was originally published in English, in the Indian Ladies' Magazine, but I've put the standard Bengali translation next to it because I am intrigued that the English "lady" ...
I see Theresa May is off to Canada for talks on, among other issues, post-Brexit trade. The Canada-EU trade deal (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement - CETA), 7 years in the making, comes into effect shortly. According to the BBC, May wants to use CETA as the model for a UK/Canada trade deal. But wasn't Brexit meant to give us the freedom to arrange bigger, better trade deals? Instead, we
Here's the list to choose from, in alphabetic order: East of England East Midlands London North East North West South East South West and Gibraltar West Midlands Yorkshire and the Humber (Answer below, along with its significance) The top three were: London (60% Remain) South East (48% Remain) and... South West and Gibraltar* (47% Remain) That mere 1% difference between the South East and South West, along with the South West's appearance at number three, is very relevant for Liberal Democrat strategy. The South West has been, and continues to be, one of the party's strongest areas. Which leads sometimes ...
Liberal Democrats must speak to Leavers as much to Remainers with a message that an #exitfrombrexit is about getting on with fixing Britain, not just staying in the EU.
At their autumn conference in Bournemouth yesterday, Liberal Democrats voted overwhelmingly to urge the British government to recognise the State of Palestine. The vote came at the end of a thoughtful and well-informed debate on a motion to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, drafted with input from both Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (LDFP, which [...]
Get them while they are still in stock! Lib Dem Image are selling an extended range of Lib Dem mugs thanks to Theresa May's decision to call a snap election. With 4 more MPs than this time last year, it now costs 50% more to have a full set of Lib Dem MP mugs! In a move that will please the environmental movement, mugs of former MPs from before the 2015 general election can now be recycled -
All former leaders get a keynote speech at the first Conference after they step down. Tim Farron's was, as you would expect, loud, funny in parts, optimistic, loyal and ended by giving the party a serious mission. There was a lot of love in the room for that man. "I was at Euston the other day and a lady came up to me, half my size but still somehow able to look down her nose at me. "She said 'well, I'm not surprised you stepped down! Never trust a man who wears doctor marten shoes!' "If only we'd known. I'd ...
After some investigation by Southfield Liberal Democrat Councillor, Andrew Steed, we have seen the plans by Labour-run Ealing Council to reduce street cleansing again! This time the frequency of deep cleansing could be further reduced from six to twelve weekly intervals. Currently I receive a lot of calls and emails on this topic; this change will just increase the number of dirty streets locally. Pretty soon, I think the Council will be asking us to both pay Council tax and sweep our own streets! Perhaps the worst part of this scheme is that here has been no announcement so it ...
Nigel Pearce, Conservative councillor for Suffield Park ward (Cromer) ... said: "After much thought and personal agonising, I have decided to join the Liberal Democrats. After many years of loyal service to the Conservative Party both as a councillor and a researcher, I can no longer reconcile myself to the policies being implemented by the ruling group on North Norfolk District Council." He added: "In my opinion, the problems with the current administration stem from the cabinet system where the decisions of the council are made by a very small group."... Liberal Democrat leader on the Council Sarah Butikofer said: ...
Sun, 14:13: The Decide Your Destiny books https://t.co/UDF8vWiuQs Sun, 20:48: My Worldcon Saturday In A Mobility Scooter https://t.co/AZZ0YEAyFH Well worth reading. Sun, 21:44: Sunday reading https://t.co/tKyfvgiYRS Sun, 23:15: RT @lowflyingrocks: 2017 RK2, 7m-15m in diameter, just passed the Earth at 8km/s, missing by 941,000km. https://t.co/reutSUktDi Mon, 09:29: RT @JolyonMaugham: Coming soon from Boris Johnson: "Unelected Eurocrats painted my bus." https://t.co/0P4F8Y2FAM Mon, 10:45: RT @UKStatsAuth: Sir David Norgrove writes to Foreign Secretary about use of '�350 million per week' figure https://t.co/yLI2SeW6FF </ul
I have just written a book for Biteback entitled Apocalypse Delayed: Why the Left is Still in Trouble. If you're interested in the book, you can check it out here. There is a whole chapter in it on the Lib Dems and why I think they struggle to regain the levels of support seen pre-2010. In [...] The post The biggest block to Lib Dem revival – it's the Steven Tyler problem appeared first on Radix.
A little while ago, I described FIRC as being "the Cinderella committee of the Party, erratically mentioned in the Constitution, in need of rapid evolution in terms of its relationships with other Federal Committees and generally overlooked by the Federal Board, who haven't yet commented on our work, engaged with our reports or provided any guidance as to its desired strategy". I stand by that, and there is a sense that there are elements on the Committee whose skills and talents are not best utilised by a structure which doesn't exactly reach out to include them, let alone our wider ...
The Bournemouth Food Bank has a stand at the Lib Dem conference and people can bring donations of food. So yesterday, Vince Cable, at the start of the leader's tour of the exhibition area, handed over 2 shopping bags of groceries. It struck me that the contents of those two bags would have been cheaper than a round of teas, coffees and sandwiches at the Bournemouth Conference Centre tea room
A quick recap for those who don't bother keeping up with this sort of thing any longer: Boris Johnson's long awaited thoughts on Brexit 2.0 were published in the Telegraph this weekend. Many wondered if he might be about to say Brexit was a bad idea in the first place, which seems naïve now. Of course, he doubled down on everything: even the £350 million a week for the NHS, which most Brexiteers have been keen to bury since the referendum was won. As an encore, he got into a public fight about the £350 figure with the UK statistics ...
As Winter approaches, the last thing you would want is for people to be without money for weeks on end, yet this is what the Government is about to inflict on thousands of benefit claimants as it rolls out Universal Credit. Evidence shows that the 6 week wait (and longer in many cases) for the first payment is causing real suffering and distress. This morning, Conference will debate an emergency motion calling for the roll-out of Universal Credit to be halted until the problems with it can be fixed. From the Guardian: The party's work and pensions spokesman, Stephen Lloyd, ...
As far as we are concerned Theresa May's so-called 'pact with the Devil' deal with the DUP to secure a majority in the House of Commons looked like a done-deal. That was before the DUP voted with Labour against the Government on the issue of tuition fees. Gina Miller who, heroically, took the government on over the need for Parliamentary approval to trigger Article 50, has been doing some digging and has discovered that things are not as signed, sealed and delivered as the Tories would have us believe. As she says in her Guardian piece, she felt it was ...
Are you interested in making things, working with wood, working in a team doing things for others? Yate Town Council are organizing a free drop in event for anyone interested in hearing more about the startup of an over 50's 'Men in Sheds' group in Yate. The event is taking place on Thursday 5th October 2017 from 12.30pm-2.30pm at the Armadillo Youth Café and Venue (the purple building next to Yate Leisure Centre). The Town Council has invited local established Men in Sheds groups to come and share their experiences with those attending and have asked if they could bring ...
I went to have a look at the new housing development at 'Poppy Fields' yesterday. I say Poppy Fields when of course I mean the former Moss Side Hospital site (also known as Ashworth South to some folk) where Maghull's second railway station is presently being built too. I arrived there at around 11am. The site was accessible i.e. the gate was open but oddly the sales suite was not despite a notice saying it was on Thursday's through to Monday's (don't they sell houses on Tuesdays and Wednesdays?). I did see a handful of people looking around the site ...
Scottish Water has now clarified to councillors the details of additional works in Blackness Road, following criticism by me about the fact that the road is being dug up again just months after the original disruption in the street was completed. Scottish Water's Corporate Affairs Officer has now advised : "As you will be aware we have carried out work in Blackness Road earlier this year. Unfortunately, following the earlier work, some sections of the water main which were originally flushed have now been identified as requiring to be re-lined as per the other mains in this area. Unfortunately, this ...
Imagine Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn taking questions from members that hadn't been scripted in advance. That's what our Vince Cable did yesterday in the traditional leader's Q & A session. Watch it here – and you will have to get to the end to find the bit that made his team look very anxious indeed when he answered how he likes to relax.
The first in my series of essays on Nilsson's music, album by album, like I've done with other artists Nilsson's first released album was not really conceived as an album. Nilsson had released a number of singles in the mid ... Continue reading →
