This morning I headed down to Whickham to help Planting Up Whickham carry out a maintenance day on Church Green. The flower beds were stripped and my job was to transfer all the dumpy bags of garden waste to the compost heap in Chase Park. This job always falls to the person with the biggest land rover! I could not stay for long however. I had a meeting of the Whinnies Allotment Society at 11am

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

Embed from Getty Images Reviewing Engel's England, I concluded: Local boundaries have been rubbed out or redrawn in a way that would be simply unthinkable in the more federal United States. My jigsaw, for instance, can be dated to between 1965, when Huntingdonshire absorbed the Soke of Peterborough, and 1974, when it was itself absorbed into Cambridgeshire. Some counties have resisted their erasure from history, notably Yorkshire (the largest) and Rutland (the smallest). Elsewhere Berkshire is fading from memory and no one seems to have heard of Huntingdonshire at all. Soon it will be as lost as the Cotswold county ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Yesterday afternoon I attended the North East for Europe rally in Newcastle. 2 hours of speeches. Lord John Shipley was the Lib Dem speaker. Good speeches also by Natalie Bennett, former Green Leader, and North East MEP Jude Kirton-Darling. Former Gateshead East MP Joyce Quinn was also a speaker as well. Labour speakers at pro-Europe rallies must be in a difficult position. Labour are split on

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

When Peter Tapsell retired, the 2015 Parliament was the first since 1852 to contain no MPs who served alongside Churchill (William Beech was an MP from 1857-1901).— James Tickner (@jemtickner) October 15, 2017One of the great tweets from James there. Sir Peter Tapsell (who is still with us) was Conservative MP for Nottingham West between 1959 and 1964, and for Horncastle (1966-83), East Lindsey (1983-97) and Louth and Horncastle (1997-2015). He was Father of the House between 2010 and 2015. William Wither Beach was also a Conservative. He sat for North Hampshire between 1857 and 1885, and for Andover between ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 492nd 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 (8-14 October, 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. John Buchan casts light on the strange ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sun 15th
20:58

Six of the Best 734

Will Dyer was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow at this year's general election. One of the last interviews the philosopher Richard Rorty gave was to Robert Harrison for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Talking of philosophy, Peter Worley believes it should be at the centre of education: "So, what is a suitably philosophical spirit and how can it be taught? I would suggest that it is not merely responding to a problem or question but doing so reflectively and using reason to progress." "Everybody now spoke as though at last, after decades of shock therapy, ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The town council is asking people what they think of the town and what services should be funded in the future. The responses will contribute towards the rewriting of the town plan and setting the budget for the next few years. A short online survey on the town plan asks what people like and dislike about Ludlow and what they would like to change. The council will also host consultation events. Questionnaires on the budget for are being delivered to every household. Again, there is an online survey. The future of our town Ludlow's current town plan was written in ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington
Sun 15th
16:54

Sunday Reading

Current Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month) Caprice and Rondo, by Dorothy Dunnett The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein Plague City, by Jonathan Morris Grand Hotel, by Vicki Baum Last books finished The Big Hunt, by Lance Parkin Memoir of the Queen of Etruria, Written by Herself / an Authentic Narrative of the Seizure and Removal of Pope Pius VII, with Genuine Memoirs of His Journey Written by One of His Attendants From Bed to Bed, by Catullus, trans. James Michie An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU27, by ...

Sun 15th
15:03

Mastodon

Just flagging up that I have signed up. I am miss_s_b@mastodon.social if you are on there; there are some interesting differences with twitter, but also some depressing similarities (mansplaining strangers; prominent TERFs, despite TERFery being explicitly outlawed in the TOS) so we'll see how it goes. I've also authorised Mastodon Bridge on both Mastodon and twitter, and would encourage others to do the same, to help us all find each other. It's important to get the syntax of your mastodon name right, but don't worry if you cock it up (like I did) you can just hit back and try ...

Sun 15th
14:28

Kindle Update

Thanks to everyone who answered my poll as to which Kindle I should get. Today I have ordered a paperwhite, and the poll is therefore now closed. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

YouGov

Labour's Shadow Brexit Spokesperson Keir Starmer has been all over the media this morning proclaiming with great certainty that Labour is against a no-deal Brexit. He actually said that with a straight face. You'd never have thought that Labour could have headed the prospect off at the pass by ensuring that the Article 50 Bill had a parachute attached to it so that we didn't fall off the edge of a cliff. They could have ensured that we continued to stay in the single market and the customs union way back in January. And don't get me started on their ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Spotted in the window of a local charity shop a few years ago was this clever poster which captures the two main reasons why people volunteer: [IMG: Volunteering poster in Mind charity shop] People help both for what they get out of it (fun, learning a new skill, meeting others and so on) as well as what they know the cause gets out of it. Appealing to both motivations is what gets the most help (as explained further in 101 Ways To Win An Election), especially when also combined with a sliding scale of commitment for people to move along. ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

This is what the site of the former Aintree Library looks like now:- And this is what it used to look like when it had a flourishing Library:- Me outside the Aintree Library Things certainly move on quickly as it seems like only yesterday that a volunteer group was formed to take over this library which Sefton Council had given notice that it no longer was going to run. Of course there were 6 other libraries that Sefton Council swung its axe over – Orrell, Litherland, College Road (Crosby) Ainsdale, Birkdale and Churchtown. I bet the volunteers who were looking ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Robert Wyatt is a sort of Gandalf of the music scene, but I find a little of his voice goes a long way. I prefer, for instance, Elvis Costello's version of Shipbuilding to Wyatt's, though I'm not sure the cool kids would agree with me. This track I do like though. It comes from Robert Wyatt's 1997 album Shleep, It is a collaboration with Brian Eno. Trivial note. Robert Wyatt is the half brother of the actor Julian Glover, Their mother Honor Wyatt, a friend on the novelist Barbara Pym, adapted several of Malcolm Saville's children's books for BBC radio. ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
Sun 15th
11:00

My tweets

Sat, 12:56: Why the Assholes are Winning: Money Trumps All https://t.co/xRweJbHL3Y Sad but true. Sat, 15:42: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film and 1928 book) https://t.co/Z3GnYjB7M7 Sat, 16:05: I Listened to Every Country's Speech at the United Nations General Assembly....(so you didn't have to) https://t.co/SCO0vJr0dv Great! Sat, 19:48: RT @britainelects: Our updated forecast if an election were held today... Labour largest party: Lab: 294 (+32) Con: 283 (-34) https://t.c... Sat, 19:56: RT @KvanOosterom: This is the Netherlands. After informing our King on formation of new government, Prime Minister Rutte leaves the Palace... Sat, 20:48: Saving the Iran Nuclear ...

When you find out one of your friends is a creepCW up the wazoo for this, but my God it's good. Abortion Clinics Across The Country Say They Need Better Protection From HarassmentMedical schools offering places via clearingAll these little signs of doom keep adding up [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

When I was on holiday, I listened to an interesting article on Women's Hour about a fringe show centred around pelvic floor exercises. It was both hilarious and mildly disturbing. And for a few days afterwards I was particularly diligent, as I expect many people were, before forgetting about it all again. Elaine Miller, the person behind that show, wrote about it in the Guardian. Anecdotally speaking, using humour as a health promotion tool works well. Proving that is tricky - the only established fact is that comedy is subjective, so, conducting a random controlled trial is fairly challenging. However, ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Saturday 7th October was an amazing day. As is traditional, I delivered the fourth best speech of the day. Here's (approximately) what I said. Marriages, like births, signal new beginnings. When Emily was born, one of my most vivid memories (apart from being useless in the delivery room) was collecting her and Jane from the hospital, driving them home, and ... The post Father of the bride – my speech appeared first on ten pence piece.

Posted by tim on ten pence piece

After my more serious recent surveys on topics such as Brexit and Liberal Democrat strategy, something a little lighter and shorter this time: who do you think was the best Liberal Democrat leader? Take the little survey here. And if any of the names aren't familiar to you, here's a short introduction to the party's history.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

With speculation growing that extremists in the Tory Government are actively considering leaving the EU without a deal in place, it is worth reflecting on how disastrous that will be for the UK. The Observer sets out some of the consequences. They say that if there is no UK-EU deal before March 2019, the consequences would be huge and immediate: The return of customs checks would mean a return to the hard border between Northern Ireland and the republic. For trade, the UK would default to WTO rules, meaning tariffs would be imposed on goods leaving the UK for the ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
eUKhost

Lib Dem Voice is always neutral in leadership elections of any sort and so we will be for the Welsh Liberal Democrat Leadership election which culminates in 2 weeks' time. The two candidates are former Assembly candidate for Ceredigion and local Councillor Liz Evans and former candidate for Montgomery Jane Dodds. The only thing I will say is that having met both Jane and Liz, I think that they are both absolutely amazing and either would be a worthy successor to Kirsty Williams who has resumed the leadership temporarily. This election is unusual in that it is being fought between ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

As part of the season of Wednesday afternoon lectures, Professor Graeme Walker, Director of the Abertay Yeast Research Group at Abertay University, is giving a talk later this week on the subject of yeasts. The lecture will take place in the D'Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre in the Tower Building at the Dundee University, at 2.15pm this Wednesday - 18th October - at a charge of £2. Yeasts are the world's premier industrial microbes. Yeast and fermentation technology is entwined with the history of human civilisation - from ancient Egyptian brewing to modern day biotechnology. This lecture will explore the diversity ...

The following is from a Merseytravel press release Ground work has started on the new state-of-the-art depot at Kirkdale where all maintenance work for the new Merseyrail trains, due to be introduced in 2020, will take place. Warrington-based BAM Nuttall are currently undertaking enabling works after being awarded the contract by Stadler Rail Services, who will be manufacturing and maintaining the new fleet. Preliminary work is due to start in October, with the depot build set to be complete by 2019, in time for the arrival of new trains for testing. Features of the new depot will include: · The ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

The Government have committed to raising the maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life. This follows a campaign spearheaded in Parliament by former Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland, who introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill with cross party support last year calling on the government to make these changes. Commenting, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey MP said:"Liberal Democrats welcome the government's commitment to raising the maximum sentence for those who cause death by dangerous driving, and for careless drivers who kill while under the influence of drink or drugs. "The devastation caused to ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats