Just the one council by-election, in Hertfordshire, to get the 2018 by-election show on the road. The ward, Borehamwood Cowley Hill, has not seen a Liberal Democrat in the last seven contests, stretching back to 2007. This time, however, there was a Lib Dem thanks to Paul Robinson. Thank you, Paul. Borehamwood Cowley Hill (Hertsmere) turnout 19.2%. Not that bad for a council by-election in early January... — Number Cruncher Politics (@NCPoliticsUK) January 4, 2018
Two reports have put current Conservative Party membership at 70,000: John Strafford, chairman of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy, says he has heard two independent reports saying Conservative national membership is now down to 70,000 — Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) January 4, 2018 With Liberal Democrat membership up in six figures, that backs-up earlier reports of the Lib Dems over-taking Conservative membership, something unprecedented in British political history. One target from Vince Cable's leadership campaign achieved, and by some margin: on these figures Lib Dem membership is over 40% higher than that of Theresa May's* party. Interested in also joining the ...
Our trip to New England has been, I have to admit, unfavoured by the weather. We spent our five nights in Boston in the midst of the coldest week they've had since the winter of 1917/18, and whilst yesterday was rather nice here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, today has seen the impact of what is called a 'bomb cyclone', producing 8-12 inches of snow in blizzard conditions. Actually, I've quite enjoyed it for the most part. Today, to make up for the general lack of snow in my life in recent years, I put on my hiking boots, wrapped up ...
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The latest figures show the NHS crisis is worsening, with thousands of patients being stuck in ambulances outside A&Es and many hospitals suffering from a severe lack of beds.
Embed from Getty Images Mark Pack's latest Liberal Democrat Newswire (not yet in the newletter's archive) recalls the 2007 leadership election between Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. As it reminds us, Huhne might well have won if the pile of postal votes that arrived late had been counted. Mark describes the two contenders: The pair had been close friends and fellow MEPs; both were elected to Parliament for the first time in 2005. Strains in their friendship had surfaced when Chris Huhne had a tilt at the party leadership in 2006 after Charles Kennedy had stood down; Menzies Campbell had ...
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Throughout my presently 32 years in public life I have had numerous encounters with police officers. The vast majority of those encounters have been really positive and I grew to respect many police women and men as a consequence. But I have also encountered police officers who have struck me as being simply the wrong type of person to put on that uniform. I refer to personality traits such as controlling, self-important or remote from the communities they are meant to be serving. Yes police officers have to be tough and unwavering as they try to keep us safe ...
Embed from Getty Images Perhaps we are starting to feel we have had enough of Pointless, but it is a good quiz show. This is not least because it requires contestants to be knowledgeable. You might think that all quizzes do that, but not so. Pointless is almost a mirror image of Family Fortunes, which rewarded contestants for being average not for being clever. Yet there are two subjects where Pointless contestants generally know little and find the thought they might know something to be so unreasonable as to be amusing. One is British politics and the other is geography. ...
In the spirit of the 12 Days of Christmas, which end tomorrow on January 5th, here are 12 bits of advice I'd offer our future royal family member. I myself married into the establishment 23 years ago from across the pond - a different sort of establishment, but nevertheless, the esteemed role of being an Oxford don's wife. No matter how long you live here, people will hear your accent first. Not your words or what you're saying, your accent. So just accept that you will always be 'that American Harry married.' Keep your sense of humour. The British are ...
Britain's war against the Ottoman Empire, following the Turks' decision to side with Germany in the First World War, was considered a side-show by many generals and politicians in London, who believed that the Western Front was the real battlefield. Yet British intervention in the Middle East, partly in harmony with Arab forces keen to [...]
Second paragraph of third entry ("And"): Why get so excited over a 'little word' like and? In most wordbooks, it's the 'content words' that attract all the attention - the words that have an easily statable meaning, like elephant and caravan and roe. The books tend not to explore the 'grammatical words' - those linking the units of content to make up sentences, such as in, the and and. That's a pity, because these 'little words' have played a crucial role in the development of English. Apart from anything else, they're the most frequently occurring words, so they're in our ...
Interesting data from the latest research into party members by the Party Members Project at Queen Mary University of London: there's very strong support amongst Liberal Democrat members for a more diverse House of Commons.
An academic study produced by the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London, has appeared today that reveals the character of the main political parties. Unsurprisingly we are overwhelmingly, up to 96%, anti-Brexit, in favour of the Single Market and Customs Union, and would strongly support a referendum on the outcome of negotiations. Significantly, Labour's membership are not far behind us on Brexit, indicating a disjunction with the Labour leadership that is likely to prove contentious, if Labour continue to tergiversate over Brexit. By contrast the Tory membership not only favour Brexit, but favour an extreme Brexit, out of ...
The polls have settled into one of their periodic lulls. They consistently come back with Labour and the Tories pretty much neck in neck, both of them in the very early 40s. Some of them have the Tories a point or two ahead, some of them have Labour just ahead. UKIP are still dead and buried and the Lib Dem poll numbers refuse to budge at all from around 7%. I don't think there will be an election in 2018. Or 2019, for that matter, but that's a long way to be looking ahead. However, I can't rule it out. ...
After the hype of Christmas and New Year's there comes the annual collective let-down. Absolutely normal after super-charged activity and lots of parties, but what about those who have loneliness as a constant companion? Before I pontificate, I should declare I enjoy self-imposed loneliness. I am a pianist, and some of my happiest days are when I see no-one at all. Difficult to explain to a non-musician. There was a recent Christmas where I left the family with the in-laws, and came home to my studio for 8 days of uninterrupted work. I spoke to no one, met up with ...
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Rail tunnels under Liverpool – A more environmentally sustainable solutuion to the Port of Liv...
Liverpool 2's massive new container cranes The Liverpool Echo has the story – see link above With all the objections to the Highways England 'let's build a new road through the Rimrose Valley Country Park' preferred solution to try to solve the expanding Port of Liverpool's access difficulties these old tunnels under the City may well be a far better and more environmentally sustainable solution. For goodness sake expanding the rail access to the Port is the solution and the tunnels are already there. What's more the present rail link to the Port is underused. With thanks to Mike ...
The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners is this party's foremost authority on local campaigning. They know how to win council seats and run councils like nobody else. A chance to work for them is a real opportunity. ALDC, the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners, is looking for an enthusiastic new team member in this newly created role of Fundraising and Sponsorship Officer. You will have the experience and enthusiasm to help us grow our income from various sources, with the biggest potential in major donor and membership fundraising. You will have some experience in fundraising or ...
Thu 4th
12:09
Attention Londonny Types: is there room for a me in your house on the 19th of this month?
I have an FCC meeting at 10.30am on the 20th, so need crash space for the evening of the 19th. The fellow FCC member I usually stay with is not available this time. Proximity to Westminster/central London in general a bonus. All offers gratefully received. [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
In Owen Jones' latest Guardian column he says that he can't see how Brexit can be stopped but that he'd like to be persuaded that it can be. So, here's my attempt to persuade him both that Brexit can be stopped and that the Stop Brexit campaign isn't the way he portrays it in his column. First, though, some common ground. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I agree with Owen that arguing about the referendum is not the way to Stop Brexit, and I especially never want to see 'but it was an advisory referendum' put forward as ...
This week "crisis" measures have been announced to enable the National Health Service to cope with its now annual near collapse.. The British Red Cross declared last year's situation a "humanitarian crisis" and this year's is said to be even worse. The measures imposed to cope with the increasing number of "black alerts" (hospitals admitting officially that they cannot cope with the demands on them) include: outpatient appointments cancelledday surgery cancellednon-urgent surgery planned for this month postponed to February (or later)penalties for having mixed wards suspended.The minister responsible, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, explained on BBC 2's Newsnight last night that ...
The truth is that top-down and bottom-up are already living together. I have just come across a suggestion that our present top-down bureaucratic form of government should be replaced by "one that is open to challenge from below". This reminds me of how the idea of localism was corrupted by the powers-that-be into the Localism [...] The post When bottom up and top down government can rub along together appeared first on Radix.
Wed, 12:56: 2017 safest year on record for commercial passenger air travel https://t.co/ydS6CPpGnu Good news, for a change! Wed, 16:05: The incredible shrinking Britain https://t.co/84zD2fNmQs The impact of Brexit on the UK's global role, by the always excellent @leemayikama. Wed, 17:04: RT @apcoworldwide: Our @nwbrux shares why the Swedish Parliamentary Election is one to keep an eye on, and highlights other European #elect... Wed, 18:10: The Master trilogy from Big Finish https://t.co/wUuDpIsvIJ Wed, 19:01: RT @MSmithsonPB: It says a lot about the judgement of BoJo and Gove that they've rushed to defend TYoung Wed, 20:48: RT @JenniferMerode: Three quarters of ...
'Does Hull have a future?' City built on a flood plain faces sea rise reckoning This makes me sad. Hull uni was so good when I went there. weekly_food_challenge | Challenge #27: Something from a cookbook that came with an appliance This week's challenge is live :) 'Cheese better than sex' insist people who are terrible at sex Bisexual power phrase: embrace the power of "and" New academic research shows the wide differences between CON members and those who join other parties 38% of Lib Dems think schools should teach children to obey authority. THIRTY-EIGHT PER CENT OF MY PARTY ...
Having people understand what the Liberal Democrats stand for and why is a continuing challenge for the party. More recently, it's come with a new twist – because the majority of the party's members have joined since 10pm on general election day 2015. So to help address part of that issue, I've spun up a little experiment: a new and free 14-part weekly email series about the roots of liberal, Liberal and Liberal Democrat beliefs. Each email is quite chunky, which is why they are spaced out weekly. You can sign up for the free 14-week course here. It's about ...
Responding to former Treasury Minister Lord O'Neill's comments that leading Brexiteers in the government have "no clue about the world economy", Vince Cable, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: "Jim O'Neill is absolutely right to say that leading Brexiteers are clueless about the world economy. "The future of our country is resting in their hands yet they have shown time and time again that they have a chronic misconception of how the modern, globalised world works. "Of course it is right to disown Trump's nationalistic and short-sighted approach to Pacific countries but far-flung trade deals will never compensate for leaving ...
Responding to Trump's latest round of Twitter diplomacy, including boasting about the size of his button and threatening Palestine, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, the first UK MP of Palestinian background, said: "After a year in office it has become quite clear that Donald Trump is making the world less safe. "His ham-fisted, bully boy diplomacy is leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. People struggling through a lifetime of conflict deserve better than a petulant child running a world superpower. "The world would be a better place if only he could just show some restraint. Instead we will ...
It is a peculiar sensation to find myself half-agreeing with Tony Blair, though one that I only experienced after he left office and started to find some sort of conscience. On Brexit though, the former Prime Minister is spot-on, it will be bad for the country and the Labour Party need to step up to the mark and start to provide an effective opposition. As the Guardian reports, Blair has repeated his support for the Liberal Democrats position that the British people should have the final decision on whether the withdrawal from the EU goes ahead or not: Describing 2018 ...
Prediction is a mug's game; you are more likely to miss something important than demonstrate insight. And yet it is the only good way to put your insights to the test. Science may be mostly about gathering and reviewing evidence, but the true test of its worth is prediction. And so, in line with tradition ... Continue reading 2018: Trouble is brewing between Germany and Italy and between China and the US
Prisoners get a bad rap. They get pushed around by politicians because it is politically popular to beat them with a rolled-up copy of the daily. Just because this happens doesn't mean it is okay. In fact, it is a fundamental abdication of our moral duty not to stand up for the human rights of our fellow human beings. As such I been conducting some informal polling within the Young Liberals and by a landslide of 92% in favour, 8% opposing, they backed prisoner voting. Further questioning of the group indicated a 96% approval for the establishment of Prisoner-Prison councils. ...
Brook Street (Dundee City Archives) :
The UK government has ambitious plans to boost research and development. Most funding will come from business - but universities must be at the heart of the strategy After decades of lobbying, the government has promised to raise UK investment in research and development (R&D) to 2.4% of gross domestic product over the next ten years. Brexit is the big catalyst. The government is using R&D investment to combat stubbornly low productivity and persistent regional inequalities before new economic challenges appear. Governments have set out vague ambitions before but this time it's more than just talk. An extra £2.3bn per ...
(This is the third in a series of posts looking at Harry Nilsson's albums) Nilsson's second album proper was made in a very different situation from his first. Whereas when he had recorded Pandemonium Shadow Show he was an unknown, ... Continue reading →
