Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), the Dutch post-Impressionist painter, is today recognised as one of the fathers of Modern Art, though in his day his work was derided by all but a few devoted supporters, including his brother and the subject of one of his finest portraits, Dr Gachet. He sold precisely one of his 800 [...]
The Liberal Democrat leader has written an article for the Independent calling on Theresa May to act on the level of personal debt in Britain. He writes: Weak growth and falling real wages mean living standards are only being maintained through personal borrowing, growing by 10 per cent a year. Recent Bank of England figures show unsecured debt (credit card spending and personal loans) growing at four times the rate of mortgage debt, while the household savings rate is at a historic low. Hence the recent news that total unsecured debt has surpassed £200bn, the amount it climbed to just ...
My new novel The Basilisk Murders is now out in hardback from Lulu, and in paperback and ebook from Amazon (UK) (US). Those of you with Kindle Unlimited or the Kindle Owners' Lending Library can read it for free — ... Continue reading →
Viv Parry, Tracey Huffer and myself have responded to Shropshire Council's consultation on parking charges and length of stay. We must balance the needs of car drivers with those without a car. The vitality of Ludlow depends on meeting the needs of traders and businesses. Residents need somewhere to park. Our town, which is set to see considerable expansion, must build its future around sustainable transport. Nothing else will work in a town enlivened and constrained by its historic fabric and environmental context. Our response is based on our intimate knowledge of the town and hinterland it serves, and on ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: In our Anglo-American society — a relatively indoor one — when a performance is given it is usually given in a highly bounded region, to which boundaries with respect to time are often added. The impression and understanding fostered by the performance will tend to saturate the region and time span, so that any individual located in this space-time manifold will be in a position to observe the performance and be guided by the definition of the situation which the performance fosters. This is the first of three books on human behaviour which I read ...
Update from Highways England, who have changed the dates for the M4 J10 slip road closures CANCELLED Thursday 19 October - Overnight closure of the link from the M4 eastbound carriageway around to the A329(M) Wokingham-bound carriageway (9pm to 6am) CANCELLED Friday 20 through to Monday 23 October - Full weekend closure of the link from the M4 eastbound carriageway around to the A329(M) Wokingham-bound carriageway (9pm Friday evening through to 6am Monday morning) In addition, the slip road closures for other dates in October and November have changed as follows: Thursday 26 October - This is now a planned ...
[IMG: Sandgate Farmers' Market logo] Live local to Sandgate? Looking for a paid Saturday job? Marsh Produce are looking for a person to run their free range meat and vegetable stall at the Sandgate Farmers Market on the first and third Saturday of the month at the Chichester Hall (10 to 12:30). Clearly any applicant should be confident handling money, numerate and enjoy dealing with the public. You would need a vehicle as produce has to be collected and returned to their farm in Brookland on the Romney Marsh before and after the Market. Marsh Produce will pay the successful ...
The news reports have fallen away and the shock is now confined to the victims and those directly affected. Another mass murder is rapidly becoming history as the National Rifle Association and its supporters hope. A search of Google will not show many news reports beyond the 7th of October. It has been well-publicised that it is a technique of the gun lobby in the USA to say after every massacre "It is too soon to talk about gun control." I have therefore waited but frankly, I'm not going to talk about gun control at all. Nor am I ...
Wed 18th
15:11
Kent Highways Notice of Roadworks on A259 Sandgate Esplanade: installing a new Zebra Crossing and ot...
I'm *really* pleased about this - after years of lobbying and almost getting there, at the end of October Kent Highways will be installing a new zebra crossing on Sandgate Esplanade just about at the foot of Brewers Hill! Kent's notice of the roadworks is as follows: Kent County Council are planning to install a new Zebra crossing point on the A259 Sandgate Esplanade, Sandgate, located at the bottom of Brewers Hill. The plans also include the installation of a kerb build out to make the zebra crossing more visible to on-coming traffic. Parking restrictions will be shortened to mitigate ...
Wed 18th
11:55
Welsh Lib Dems' Leadership: Liz Evans writes...We must offer a positive alternative to nationalism
Changing our constitution is recognition of where we currently are as a Welsh party; a brave, necessary and ultimately exciting step. My name is Liz Evans, I'm a County Councillor for Ceredigion, an intrepid campaigner and committed liberal! So here we are, two Welsh speaking women from the coast and countryside of Wales; campaigning colleagues looking to be the next Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader – how amazing is that! Be in no doubt that Welsh politics is the poorer without Welsh Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, both in the Welsh Assembly and Westminster. Yet this is the reality check. The last eighteen ...
I attended the Gateshead East Lib Dem branch meeting to give a report as Leader of the Opposition on Gateshead Council last night. An interesting discussion took place on the boundary proposals for the Gateshead constituencies. I have to confess, I had not had time to see them before going to the meeting so members there gave me the details. Given the Parliamentary arithmetic of the current
Tue, 12:56: RT @KearnsWriter: Let's embrace the world of "or both". https://t.co/1sPdwB6Jru Tue, 13:18: RT @kevinhorourke: Has it occurred to no-one in BBC that the "acceleration" that's required might involve the UK hurrying up on 1st stage i... Tue, 14:24: I'm at EPC European Policy Centre in Bruxelles https://t.co/mEMaMR4rAI https://t.co/oGw5tMrJkn Tue, 14:45: RT @epc_eu: .@Feorlean: "There is no such thing as a single #UK. #Scotland did not vote for #Brexit" #epc_EU Tue, 14:45: RT @epc_eu: .@Feorlean: "We want to reach a new deal with the #EU as similar as possible to the old one. No deal is the worse scenario" ...
miss_s_b | If you can hear a wailing and a gnashing of teeth from political types today... ... That's because the boundary reviews are out. Xapo's Swiss mountain bitcoin vault in photos ... there's genuinely no end to the madness of humanity, is there? I mean, it doesn't matter how securely they are stored physically if you still fall for a phish, does it? How Iron Maiden's Eddie ended up in Angry Birds Evolution So, I'm going to download the latest Angry Birds Game then... miss_s_b | Kindle Update Update In which I update everybody on the Update to the ...
Wed 18th
10:47Protesting by 'taking the knee' during the "Star-spangled banner" - who are the patriots?
Embed from Getty Images This is the sixteenth and final of my posts based on a recent tour of the eastern half of the USA. I visited a number of sites relevant to African American history. To mark Black History Month I have been posting about my experiences. In this last article, I reflect on my journey and its relevance to what is going on these days in the good ol' US of A. Imagine the scene. Being an absolute sucker for plaques, I was dutifully reading the plaques in Court Square, Montgomery AL. I was queuing up, or should ...
Over the last few weeks, I have posted up recollections from my recent tour of the eastern half of the USA. I visited a number of sites relevant to African American history. To mark Black History Month, I have been relating some of the things I saw. Here is a compendium which lists the sixteen posts in this series with links to all of them: 1. The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment 2. Philip Randolph, Civil Rights campaign leader. 3. The struggle for equal rights for students 4. A fighter for education for black women – Violet Lewis 5. The Detroit ...
[IMG: Liberal Democrat Newswire logo] Liberal Democrat Newswire #105 came out last week, looking at how newer members are changing the Liberal Democrats and how they think the party should change. You can now read it in full below, but if you'd like the convenience of getting it direct by email in future just sign up for it here: Email* Name* First Last What would you like to receive?* Liberal Democrat Newswire: monthly newsletter Mark Pack's blog posts and council by-election results: max 1 email per day Official Lib Dem news from www.LibDems.org.uk: max 1 email per day Official Lib ...
We define a thing by naming it, but then is our understanding of that thing limited by the description itself. How does this inform our individuality in society and culture? We looked at examples of gender, sexual orientation, and race, and the ways in which these societal constructs are defined inform the performativity of these roles. Image Source: www2.naz.edu Words have power: Austen describes the use of the spoken word as a performative, to signify or imply action (such as the phrase "I declare war"), or in the case of a wedding ceremony where both the spoken word combined with ...
This blog post is copied from the Radix blog... The news yesterday that the doom-laden trade dispute, between the giant American planemaker Boeing and its small Canadian rival Bombardier, may have been resolved only seemed to compound the basic underlying problem. If the dispute really has been patched up, then it has been by doing a deal with Boeing's European rival giant Airbus to construct the Bombardier planes ordered in the US in a factory in the USA. Of course, we should welcome anything that resolves this kind of trade spat, but - really - there is something craven about ...
I have posted about this problem many times in the past. To say that the villagers in Lunt must have had a gut full of the illegal activities of fly-tippers around their community must be putting it politely. This isolated Sefton Borough Community has been a rubbish dumping ground for far too long – tyres, asbestos, white goods, furniture, builders rubble, remnants of pot-farms you name it, it's been dumped there, It's been going on and indeed getting worse for many years now. I recall that in my time as a Sefton Councillor for the ward that covered Lunt Village ...
Wed 18th
10:17
If "no deal" Brexit turns into a disaster, the Tories will be out of power for a generation
I, as some of you who read my stuff often will know, am much more optimistic about the Conservative Party's chances of winning the next general election, whenever that may be, than most people who write about this stuff. There are many reasons for that which I won't rehash for you now, but a lot of it hinges on Brexit. So, I'm betting that the Tories will get some sort of transitional deal that maintains the status quo, then a new leader, then manage to put Brexit somewhat in the background (compared to its omnipresence in British life at present ...
The news yesterday that the doom-laden trade dispute, between the giant American planemaker Boeing and its small Canadian rival Bombardier, may have been resolved only seemed to compound the basic underlying problem. If the dispute really has been patched up, then it has been by doing a deal with Boeing's European rival giant Airbus to [...] The post Monopoly power and the dog that didn't bark appeared first on Radix.
The level of preparedness of the UK Government for our exit from the EU has come under severe scrutiny in recent months and has been found wanting. In the circumstances claims by some Brexiteer Ministers that we should consider a 'No deal' scenario are laughable. We simply do not have the relevant resources in place to sustain such an arrangement. That is why Theresa May is now in favour of a transition period. She understands that the UK Government needs the time to make the investment that will sustain our trade in the event of tariffs being imposed. Even then ...
As ever, there's an xkcd for that It's getting very hard to go on social media these days without bumping into someone declaring that they're going to be creating their own new centrist political party and inviting everyone to join. In this era of Warholian politics, everyone gets to be a party leader for fifteen minutes, and last night it was Economist writer Jeremy Cliffe describing his Macronic dreams in public and declaring a new 'Radicals UK' movement. Previous incarnations of this idea include 'the Democrats', 'Renew', multinational street parties in Maidenhead, and the idea that George Osborne will come ...
This Friday there will be a drop-in session for those needing advice on dealing with hate crime. Between 10am and 1.30pm on Friday 20th October staff from South Glos Council, Avon and Somerset Police and agencies such as SARI (Stand Against Racism and Inequality) will be in Yate Shopping Centre's West Walk. Anyone can ask questions about hate crime or hate-related incidents and get information and advice. If you can't make this session, or for more information on hate crime including how to report it, visit: www.southglos.gov.uk/hatecrime
Labour today have an opposition day debate on Universal Credit. They are rightly calling out the huge flaws in the system and the misery its botched implementation is causing. What's interesting is that they now accept that the principles behind Universal Credit – as an end to the poverty trap – were sound. It is the huge cuts post 2015 when the Tories were governing on their own, and the implementation which leaves people without money for six weeks as standard which must be stopped. They raise the issue of homelessness and evictions caused by Universal Credit, too. Unfortunately, Labour's ...
From the City Council : THE ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984 : SECTION 14(1) THE DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL AS TRAFFIC AUTHORITY being satisfied that traffic on the road should be prohibited by reason of Scottish Water sewer repair works being carried out HEREBY PROHIBIT the driving of any vehicle in Polepark Road (between Fyffe Street and Milnbank Road), Dundee. This notice comes into effect on Monday 23 October 2017 for 5 working days. Pedestrian thoroughfare will be maintained. Alternative routes are available via Lochee Road/Tullideph Road/City Road/Milnbank Road. For further information contact 433082. Executive Director of City DevelopmentDundee City Council ...
Vince Cable has called on the government to end the benefits freeze, after figures showed consumer inflation has reached a five-year high of 3%. Rising food prices made a large contribution to the change, with an increase of 0.8% between August and September 2017, compared with a 0.4% fall last year. It comes as analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found the benefits freeze is expected to leave over 10 million families an average of £450 a year worse off in real terms by 2020. Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable commented: "The Brexit squeeze caused by the falling ...
Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable says that the government Green Paper on foreign takeovers does not go far enough. Vince Cable said: "There is a powerful case for strengthening public interest case on takeovers, as indeed I argued following the attempted takeover of Astra Zeneca. "However the government's proposals as they stand are far too narrow. "Their scope must be widened to properly defend Britain's entire science base, not just a narrow subset of businesses in the military and computer hardware sectors. "In recent months, several of our high-tech companies have been snapped up by foreign competitors taking advantage of ...
It has been more than a week since the news of the sexual harassment carried out by the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein broke. The scale of his evil acts has become apparent subsequently with more and more victims coming forward with their accounts. On 15 October the actress Alyssa Milano tweeted asking women who had been victims of sexual crimes to tweet her using the hashtag #metoo. The request has spawned a movement in itself with #metoo being actively used for a number of days now. Sexual harassment is endemic and even a quick read of the #metoo twitter stream ...
Over the last couple of days I've been dipping my toe into that infamous Twitter meme, "1 Like = 1 Unpopular Opinion." You can see all my inane (the S is silent) ramblings here, but I'd draw particular attention to no. 17: 17. Future historians will look back and be completely baffled by the unpopularity ... Continue reading Time to Remove the Lib Dem Invisibility Cloak
