The Authors' Club (founded 1891) and the Literary Circle of the National Liberal Club held their annual dinner at the NLC this evening, with guest speaker, Tom Holland, the historian. He was pleased to be in a location so closely associated with the late Victorian Prime Minister, William Gladstone, whose statue gloriously presides over the [...]
It's not just the Turret Gateway at Leicester Castle that has seen better days. The Leicester Mercury has the full list of county buildings on Historic England's new Heritage at Risk Register. Among them is the windmill at Kibworth Harcourt, which is suffering the ravages of time and now requires comprehensive repairs.
A tree yesterday You might think that the Sheffield Labour Party had got itself into enough trouble by selecting Jared O'Mara as a parliamentary candidate, but it was not content to leave things at that. Today, a hearing took place at which the Labour-dominated city council sought to have a Green member of the authority convicted of breaching an injunction preventing her from demonstrating against its absurd PFI contract. That contract is seeing healthy trees felled across the city. If convicted, the Green councillor Alison Teal could have faced two years in prison. The good news is that the court ...
I walked a section of the Sefton Coastal Path the other day and found myself passing under a bridge (at the side of the Liverpool – Southport railway line) that I have driven over very many times. I knew this was where the former Southport & Cheshire Lines Extension Railway had once been carried over the top of the present Merseyrail line but what I had not realised is that the bridge abutments of the old railway bridge are still in use with a road deck replacing the previous railway one. The stone abutments are the clear give away as ...
Fri 27th
19:40
Why David Steel's Abortion Act means so much to me - a reflection on its 50th Anniversary
Today is an important day. We, as Liberals, need to remember that 50 years ago, on this day, the Abortion Act came into being. Why is this important? I know many people, especially disabled people, feel a real conflict about this legislation. There are issues to consider here, not least with regard to the concept of gender selective abortion and I would urge people to look at MP voting records on this important topic. Back in the 1960s, the oral contraceptive was still in its infancy. Abortion was illegal and many women faced the real social stigma of being pregnant ...
In Calipatria, California, the town is below sea level - but their flag pole isn't. But what does "sea level" mean? Is it just theory, or is there more behind it?
Embed from Getty Images Good news from The Press: Councillors in York have backed a Yorkshire devolution deal covering the biggest possible geography, despite pushes from the Tory group to abandon the "One Yorkshire" bid in favour of a smaller "Greater Yorkshire" deal. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green councillors together out-voted the Conservatives on the ruling administration, and approved a motion which "recognises the potential advantages of a 'One Yorkshire' deal." The "One Yorkshire" proposals sprang out of talks over the summer between 17 local authorities across Yorkshire, but has not been backed by ministers because of an earlier deal ...
It is difficult to understand how somebody who expresses such hatred and contempt for his fellow human beings as we have seen from Jared O'Mara, could wish to undertake or be a suitable choice for the noble calling of public service in politics. I do accept that is possible for an angry young man to reform over the years and become an upstanding public figure. The problem is that there is no sign that this has happened. O'Mara first sought election – to the city council – in 2004, the same year he was writing the hate speech against women, ...
More for my own records than anything else, these were my votes in the short fiction categories. I did not keep good notes of the two shorter categories but can say a bit more about Best Novelette. Best Short Story 1. "That Game We Played During the War", by Carrie Vaughan - came third (narrowly missed second) in the actual vote, would have missed the ballot completely had there been only five finalists. 2. "The City Born Great", by N.K. Jemisin - placed second by the voters as well as by me. 3. "Seasons of Glass and Iron", by Amal ...
It's 2017, and there's another motion on Uber to be debated at London region conference. Two years ago the conference voiced its opposition to Transport for London's (TfL's) rather overbearing plans for private hire regulation, which ranged from banning the visualisation of nearby cars on a mobile app to mandatory 5 minute minimum waiting times (even if a ride was around the corner). The plans were so out there the head of the Competition and Markets Authority took the unusual step of writing an opinion piece in the Financial Times publicly attacking them for proposing ideas that 'would artificially restrict ...
Fri 27th
14:55"Once more into the breach, my friends!" D66 Delivers On Its Feminist Social-Liberal Tradition in th...
Part 2 (of 2): The people in the Dutch coalition: strong D66 women For me the proudest D66 boast about the new Dutch coalition is that, where all four coalition parties said having more women in government is important, D66 with its social liberal feminist tradition dating from Aletta Jacobs and her British suffragist friends (see my earlier posting about her and Millicent Fawcett) actually delivered on this: with three female and one male Cabinet ministers, and with one male and one female minister, we have the highest proportion of women, and deliver the bulk of the female Cabinet ministers. ...
What happened to the 11.9 million who didn't vote in the referendum last year? According to the pro-Brexit lobby's version of 'democracy' they no longer exist. Non-voters may have been unregistered, uninterested, or too busy to pop in the polling station, and others reckoned their single vote would never matter much and didn't bother, but there is a core who were confused by the lies and misinformation and didn't know which way to turn, after a campaign that was shoddy on both sides. In the last few months the effects of the Brexit vote have started to become clearer. The ...
My father died last month. Not the way I'd want to start a piece for Lib Dem Voice, but that's the fact of the matter. And after mulling it over for a while (and being very occupied with everything such a bereavement entails), I thought it would be relevant to write about him here. Like his father before him, and his son after him (me), David Blackburn stood as a Liberal (Democrat) Parliamentary Candidate. He fought Brentford and Isleworth in West London in 1974; I remember campaigning for him as a 16 year old and I still have the press ...
No further cuts to the Royal Marines.The government has just announced cuts of 200 Royal Marines.This is disgraceful. The Royal Marines' expertise is unparalleled. Strong, flexible and incisive, they keep us, and the world, safe.Join Paddy Ashdown and the Lib Dems in our call for no further cuts to the Royal Marines - sign our petition today:https://www.libdems.org.uk/marines
Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom, yesterday released a Written Ministerial Statement stating that the response to government defeats on opposition motions will now take the form of a written statement up to three months after the vote has taken place. This follows a slew of votes in recent weeks where Conservative MPs have been whipped to abstain. Commenting, Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine said: "This is the latest example of a Conservative government who are showing utter disdain for parliament. "Responding to Government defeats in the form of a vacuous written statement, delivered up to three months after the ...
Jeremy Hunt was warned about the risks of cyber attacks on the NHS a year before the devastating WannaCry attack, a damning report by the National Audit Office has revealed. Reports by the National Data Guardian and the Care Quality Commission warned the Department of Health in July 2016 that cyber attacks could jeopardise access to critical patient record systems. However, the Department didn't publish its formal response to the recommendations until July 2017, two months after the Wannacry ransomware attack. The NAO report also concluded that all the NHS organisations hit by the cyber attack could have taken relatively ...
Thu, 12:17: Getting a criminal record (my own) https://t.co/13eXoaAB65 Thu, 12:56: Council of Europe threatens to expel Azerbaijan over Mammadov case https://t.co/tLhN9D8fsX Good. Thu, 16:05: RT @JohnOBrennan2: Observe the Sons of Ulster marching towards the Brexit cliff-edge. And demanding UK goes ever faster. https://t.co/n6HP... Thu, 18:34: The 2017 Hugo for Best Related Work: how I voted https://t.co/6NEN308ElW Thu, 20:48: RT @TheWomenOfWho: The spin off I never knew I wanted until now: https://t.co/G3Pq6j8cPQ Fri, 07:04: Just landed South Africa - my first new country since I posted this: https://t.co/KXTUzBBZwb . So my lifetime tally is now 55. Fri, 08:48: RT @SamiraAhmedUK: ...
miss_s_b | The Blood is the Life for 26-10-2017 I posted The Blood is the Life for 26-10-2017 to my dreamwidth blog [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
The number of arrests in England and Wales has halved in the past decade despite a recent rise in crime, statistics today have revealed. The total number number of arrests has fallen from 1.5 million in the year ending March 2008 to 779,660 in the year ending March 2017. Arrests have fallen by 12% in the past year alone. Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey commented: "There are many factors behind this fall in arrests, including the increase in fixed penalty notices and summons. "But there is no doubt that our police are increasingly overstretched and under-resourced. "Officers facing ...
One of the biggest hits the party took during the coalition years was not so much being associated with the Conservatives (though that was toxic enough) but losing so much of our identity. And if we want to have a future as a party, we have to get that identity back. Our coalition years slogan 'Stronger economy, fairer society' was fine up to a point, but it didn't provide us with much distinctiveness. Associated messaging that framed us as having more head than Labour and more heart than the Conservatives effectively defined us in relation to Labour and the Conservatives. ...
There are some disturbing statistics regarding Wales' growing homelessness crisis on the BBC website. They tell us that there has been a 29% increase in those people presenting themselves as being threatened with homelessness. That is a significant increase in one year alone. New obligations on Council to prevent homelessness have made some difference but Councils are now finding themselves being swamped by factors outside their control: Shelter Cymru said there had been an 8.5% drop in the use of temporary accommodation and 45% drop in the use of bed and breakfasts in the year after the new housing legislation ...
They call it "managed Democracy". Another term is an "illiberal state." It is a political/philosophical term that has emerged from central and Eastern Europe to describe political systems whose leaders claim democratic credentials while suppressing dissent. Degrees of managed democracy have become the order of the day in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia. It is also finding adherents elsewhere in the democratic world where politicians and their supporters are frustrated by the slow-turning wheels of traditional representative government. At the heart of this new system are free and fair elections—and they are scrupulously so. Election ...
Ninewells Community Garden is holding a volunteer day tomorrow, Saturday 28th October. Taking place between 10am and 3pm, anyone interested in volunteering for some gardening and social time with food to share is very welcome!
My media release to the Champion newspaper following yet another NHS letdown statement in the Aintree & Maghull edition of the paper dated 11th October 2017 ***** The former Lib Dem Leader of Sefton Council Tony Robertson, who now sits on Lydiate Parish Council, has stepped into the debate about a Health and Wellbeing Centre that is being proposed for the Town. Tony says he is angry that after numerous failed attempts to upgrade local NHS facilities little if anything has changed at all. He sights the fact that when Meadows Leisure Centre was being planned it was designed to ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41768017 The BBC has the story on its web site – see link above I know Rosie Cooper because she has previously held public office as a Liberal Democrat Councillor in Liverpool (and as a Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate) before holding her present position in public life as Labour MP for West Lancashire. Can't say I've spoken to her for some years now but it was quite a shock to see on TV last night that she has allegedly become a victim of hate crime. Rosie and I may not share a common political agenda these days but for her ...
There is little doubt that parking in the heart of the town centre is a mess. In the evenings and on Tuesdays, people park carelessly, some legally, many illegally. There is perpetual confusion about where the highway begins and ends and who owns which bit of market and castle squares. Various schemes have been put forward to resolve this, but fines are still being slapped on cars. On Monday, the town council is to discuss a new plan for restricting waiting in Castle Square and Market Square (paperwork). The restrictions might apply during the daytime only or 24-hours a day. ...
On Saturday, I made one of my infrequent trips down to That London, this time to see a theatrical performance with my friends Debi, Penny, and Ozzy. The Soulless Ones is an immersive production from Hammer Films, in which you ... Continue reading →
Having spent my time on Tuesday evening printing the next Dunston Hill and Lobley Hill Focus, I spent Wednesday afternoon delivering the patch there that I normally do. Annoyingly, I was 5 leaflets short. I'll have to make a return visit at some point to finish off the delivery. The Focus leads on the news that the finalised plans for building nearly 600 executive homes at the top of Dunston
Last week, Conservative MP Douglas Ross was criticised for refereeing a football match in Barcelona, missing a Commons debate on Universal Credit in the process. Since all Conservative MPs were whipped to abstain, his absence from the debate made no difference to the result. Nevertheless, his appearance on the pitch rather than in Parliament attracted criticism, including from Labour MP Laura
