Seven seats up for election in this week's by-elections although they only span six wards due to one double vacancy. Five of those six wards (and five of those seven vacancies) have Liberal Democrat candidates. This regular pattern over the last few weeks of most but not quite 100% of by-elections being contested by the Liberal Democrats reinforces my view that if the party really put its mind to taking fighting every by-election seriously (and it's worth doing even if you have no chance of winning) then it could. The occasional exhortation isn't enough; it should be a built-in part ...
The average of YouGov's five most recent polls shows 43 per cent saying we were right to vote to leave and 45 per cent saying we were wrong. By contrast, on average the first five polls of this year saw 46 per cent saying we were right to leave and 42 per cent wrong.
A discussion with one of the film's stars Richard E. Grant and its director Bruce Robinson. The interviewer even looks like Uncle Monty.
© Ashley Dace The Yorkshire Post reports: The Lib Dems have brought forward their selection process to find a new candidate for Sheffield Hallam in response to the suspension of the sitting Labour MP Jared O'Mara. The move follows further allegations of sexist and misogynistic comments posted by Mr O'Mara on internet forums prior to his election.It goes on to say that there are five Lib Dems have put themselves for the nomination, but Nick Clegg is not among them. I am sure Labour will do all they can to avoid a by-election, but could the Lib Dems win it ...
Historic England has placed the Turret Gateway at Leicester Castle to its Heritage at Risk register for 2017, reports the Leicester Mercury. It sounds as the though the city council has the repairs in hand, but I was interested by the quote from the chairman of Leicester Civic Society: "It is, of course, just a fragment of a much larger four-storey gateway which controlled access to the castle. "It used to have a house above it and was very imposing. "It is widely, and incorrectly, assumed that it was largely destroyed in the fighting in the city during the Civil ...
When I first heard the news of the McCarthy-style letter to UK universities by Tory whip Chris Heaton-Harris asking for information on European studies and who was teaching a syllabus that did not reflect the narrow world of the Brexit extremists, my first thought was that this was a questionable use of public money. MPs can use Parliamentary stationery and postage to support their activities as
I was only a toddler when Joseph Stalin died, so his demise did not impinge on my consciousness. But I vividly remember his successor, Nikita Krushchev, and his notorious shoe-banging episode at the UN General Assembly in 1960. Yet intriguingly it is neither Stalin nor Krushchev who really stand out in Armando Iannucci's controversial new [...]
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-41706213 The BBC has the story on its web site – see link above This is interesting and potentially far reaching as the new timetable, for introduction next May, was meant to have this electrified route up and running. If it's not then it potentially causes all sorts of problems and the Northern rail franchise in particular may well be in a pickle. In a pickle because they along with other rail operating companies have either been ordering new rolling stock and/or getting it cascaded to them from other franchise operators. If you have too many electric powered trains because ...
76 days on from the awards, I think it's OK to reveal my own preferences in the category that was hardest hit by the recent unpleasantness, with No Award (rightly) winning in 2015 and 2016. Thanks to the new arrangements, we had six viable candidates this year, and No Award came last. My first preference vote went very firmly to Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Second paragraph of third essay:They asked me to tell you what it was like to be a pregnant girl—we weren't "women" then—a pregnant college girl ...
Thu 26th
15:58
"Once more into the breach, my friends!" D66 delivers on its Environmental, Education and Feminist S...
Part 1 (of 2): The coalition agreement: many D66 issues, initiatives Due to the fragmented party-political parliament which resulted from the Dutch general elections this spring, forming a coalition was always going to be a difficult process. Setting aside populist protest parties like Geert Wilders' PVV, people expected the political center (from center-left to center-right) to play an active role in building a workable coalition. The only exception was about the PvdA (Dutch Labour party): because they lost disastrously after having been the junior party in a two-party government (led by Mark Rutte, leader of the VVD, and "Green-Right" ally ...
For the last 12 months or so I've been de facto, (and for the last 8, de jure) running the Radical Association – the radical pressure group within the Liberal Democrats. I, and others, created the association to help research and campaign for ideas like a guaranteed minimum income, land value taxation, and other new [...]
This post was published today on the Radix site... Maybe a decade and a half ago, I was a member of a committee set up by the Lib Dems to report on the party's philosophy. It was chaired by Berwick MP Alan Beith and included no less a personage than Ralf Dahrendorf. It's report was called It's About Freedom. I seem to remember that the title was my idea. We all suggested the names of modern thinkers who built the modern foundations of Liberalism. I had rather less confidence than I do now so I did not press my suggestion, ...
Did you know misogyny is not a hate crime? Hate crimes include racial and religious slurs, but not gendered. The Crown Prosecution service defines hate crime as: Any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone's prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender. With #metoo and the more open discussion about omnipresent harassment, such that most of us are guilty of ignoring 'minor' incidences rather than acting on them, there is now growing pressure to make misogyny a hate crime. This is not a new idea. Last ...
Embed from Getty Images Available on BBC iPlayer for the next 27 days is a remarkable TV programme – Chris Packham: Asperger's and me. It's a beautifully made film, in which Chris Packham is 'brutally honest' about his autism – he has Asperger's syndrome. He welcomes the cameras into his home – deep in the New Forest where he lives with his dog, Scratchy. With the assistance of actors, Chris recalls his childhood and teenage years. While struggling with human relationships, Chris Packham has had very intense relationship with animals. He recalls a Kestrel he kept as a boy, and ...
Residents of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic jurisdictions may not be familiar with the concept of a certificate to confirm your criminal record, or preferably the lack thereof. In countries with a more Napoleonic tradition of bureaucracy, where residents must register at the town hall (rather than the charming British/Irish/American tradition of leaving each local authority to guess at the size of its population between censuses), one of the many official documents that one may need and can usually get is what's called in Flanders the "uittreksel van de strafregister", an extract from the criminal register which hopefully will demonstrate that you ...
Wed, 12:20: RT @LindaMcAvanMEP: On World Polio Day the eradication of polio is closer than ever thanks to the work of @eu_echo @WHO @UNICEF @Rotary #en... Wed, 12:56: Revenge by red notice: how Azerbaijan targets its critics abroad https://t.co/6gCB3LWrMs Yuck. Wed, 15:07: RT @MimicaEU: No one ㏌ C21st should die from va㏄㏌e-preventable diseases - why @EU_Commission supports polio eradication w €55mil ㏌ 2017-19．... Wed, 15:15: RT @opportunity2017: David Davis just said 'Czechoslovakia doesn't currently have a government'. He's right. Czechoslovakia was dissolved a... Wed, 16:05: A team reborn after the fiery departure of its misanthropic guru https://t.co/n0saGbSIWt Fascinating read. Wed, ...
miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 25-10-2017 I posted The Blood is the Life for 25-10-2017 to my dreamwidth blog [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
It is time to slow down the pace of driving in our town. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a conference in Shrewsbury on 20mph speed limits. I was spurred to attend by our very active campaign by local green group, Ludlow 21. Its members want all residential streets in Ludlow to be 20mph. According to a survey of nearly 500 people, four-fifths of residents want a town-wide 20mph limit on local streets. Even more want a 20mph limit on their streets. I think we need 20mph streets. We don't have many accidents in our town but we ...
South Glos Council has produced a very useful new leaflet called "Staying Healthy in Yate" (but it is useful for quite an area around Yate as well) It covers all age groups - children and young people, adults, older people - and points to lots of different resources and activities for exercise and physical and mental health. You can download the leaflet here
Thu 26th
08:57
Merseyrail – Yes staff are right to stop people who are too intoxicated getting on trains
The Liverpool Echo has the story on its web site – see link above We have probably all been on trains or buses when there's someone nearby who has had a little to much of the falling down water. Most of the time they are harmless but some are far from that. I applaud Merseyrail for trying to identify those who are simply not fit to travel because they are a danger to themselves and everyone else on the train. The fact that in this story a drunk got violent, sadly injuring Merseyrail staff, kind of makes my point ...
Britain is a nation with a dubious imperial past and a rather selective memory; one that has forced open the doors of countries the world over while continuing to close its own, bringing us to the latest measure to be implemented with a view to creating the 'hostile environment,' that Mrs May envisages will 'incentivise voluntary departure,' of 'disqualified persons,' Schedule 7 of the 2016 Immigration Act seeks to supplement section 40 of its 2014 predecessor in precluding banks and building societies from opening current accounts for 'disqualified persons.' What's new about the latest Act, however, is its retrospective effect; ...
Theresa May has announced a U-turn over plans to apply the Local Housing Allowance cap to supported housing, a move that could have hit thousands of elderly and vulnerable people. The Liberal Democrats have now called on the government to also U-turn on its decision to scrap housing benefit for 18-21 year-olds. Wera Hobhouse MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Communities and Local Government, commented: "This cap would have hit the most vulnerable in our society, including the homeless and victims of domestic violence living in shelters. "It is right that the government has U-turned on this cruel and heartless policy. ...
Just as I will always associate the word pie with apple, so Brexit has become synonymous with the word shambles, and today is no different. Today's episode in this long-running but tragic soap opera has seen the minister leading negotiations being forced into an embarrassing climbdown, while officials highlight major flaws in the UK's withdrawal plans. The Independent reports that Brexit Secretary David Davis performed a same-day U-turn after angering Downing Street by claiming the House of Commons may not get to approve any Brexit deal until after the country has left the EU. At the same time and in ...
