I saw the straw bear dance and caper, led by his keeper and followed by musicians playing his own loping tune.So I wrote on Saturday night after attending Whittlesey's straw bear festival. In this short clip from the 2015 festival you can hear the turn for yourself. What I have not worked out is why the bear sometimes has two little bears with him and sometimes only one. I suppose with all that dancing he must get peckish.
The next Liberal Democrat federal conference is the spring one coming up in Southport on 9-11 March. However plans are already being set for the autumn conference this year, and it has just been decided to keep the four day format, introduced in 2016, for another year: Dates for LibDem Autumn Conference 2018 now confirmed – we're retaining the 4-day format used for the last couple of years, running 15th-18th September 2018. #ldconf @LibDemConf pic.twitter.com/26qmrySPB8 — Zoe O'Connell (@zoeimogen) January 17, 2018
The straightening of the railway through Market Harborough and the improvement of the station were in the hands of a company called Carillion. You may have heard of them. So far they have demolished an old goods shed and got a long way with constructing a new car park so that rails can be laid across the land occupied by the current one. How will Carillion's collapse affect the project? The Leicester Mercury reports that a Network Rail spokeswoman was "unable" to comment on Market Harborough. It does, however, quote a general statement on the planned Midland main line improvements ...
From Anne Bond's Facebook page: Just to remind everyone, I resigned the Conservative Whip on Oadby and Wigston Borough Council.I shall be sitting as an Independent Councillor till May 2019. This saddens me as I worked over 40yrs for Harborough Conservative Association, unfortunately I had to do this as there are certain people who are part of Association who I do not trust, and I cannot live my life wondering what she will do next, or who he will listen to, its a shame they refused to do the decent thing and meet me to discuss the issues!!Anne Bond sits ...
I've written before about how the Conservatives are having rather a bad run of council by-election defeats to the Lib Dems across southern England (not only on that amazing 1 December polling day) – a trend to keep an eye on with the May local elections not that far away now. Now the Conservatives have lost their majority on a council too, though this time due to the actions of councillors rather than voters: Liberal Democrats may be about to gain cabinet positions on a council after defections by two Conservatives lead to a loss of overall control by the ...
Performance Art and Live Art are frames through which to encounter work. Both terms are capacious, which is exciting, but problematic: they are both used to celebrate work that does not recognise formal boundaries, and forms which otherwise defy definition. But, the terms themselves both defy definition - they are itinerant, disparate. Image Source: artlogic.com.au In the UK Live Art is a term connected, not to forms or formality, but funding: the Arts Council recognises Live Art as a focused practice: this makes it recognisable and accessible, but runs the risk of codifying and commodifying practice. I understand Live Art ...
Theresa May is hanging onto power with all the tenacity of a terrier refusing to let anyone take its bone away. But there is always a possibility that the Conservative Government — only in office because of an arrangement in the House of Commons with 10 Ulster Protestants from the Democratic Unionist Party — could [...]
As researchers we have a responsibility to query the spaces of work, and the frames that function to construct our work and our lives. As theatre researchers we construct conversation from the ephemera of performance - the residue and the things that are left behind from impermanence. Distorting the FrameImage Source: ZebrowskiPhotography However, this leads us to question whether performance is *actually* transient. In Western societies we value the primacy of the text and the written word as a physical manifestation. However, bodies are just as physical as text: performance, and performativity, is inscribed on the body just as words ...
Full marks to David Young of the Press Association, who achieved a major scoop by screenshotting a test graphic from the Boundary Commission's website which apparently reveals the new Northern Ireland constituencies. BREAKING - Belfast set to retain 4 electoral constituencies as part of major revisions to proposals to redraw boundaries in NI, according to a Boundary Commission map obtained by @PA - new map radically different to politically contentious 2016 plan to cut seats from 18 to 17. pic.twitter.com/CxzVCYjeKH — David Young (@DavidYoungPA) January 17, 2018 Unfortunately I am travelling today, so my response is not as detailed as ...
This week the Federal Conference Committee will decide whether to allow Conference to debate the UK joining the UN multilateral nuclear disarmament Treaty. Lib Dems, like the other main parties, have been unwilling to be seen as unilateralist but since the Trident debate a most important new initiative from the UN has changed the nuclear weapons landscape. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, supported at the UN General Assembly by 122 countries, will place nuclear weapons in the same category as other WMDs -illegal under International law. Also, importantly, it provides a framework and a pathway to their ...
Wed 17th
11:57
William Wallace writes: Stopping Brexit isn't enough - we have to help the left behind
Larry Elliott in the Guardian the other day declared that the Remainers don't have any answers to the problems of the Left Behind in Britain. He didn't bother to claim that the Leavers had any answer either. Their commitment to deregulation (with abolition of the Working Time Directive one of their first targets) will hit marginal workers in insecure jobs; their hopes of cutting public spending will increase the gap between rich and poor and starve education and health of resources. But what do those of us who support Remain offer the Left Behind? Remember that the highest votes for ...
On Sunday I was, yet again, out and about delivering our latest Focus. It was woolly hat weather. Fortunately there was no snow on the ground at that point. Job done in 90 minutes.
Commenting on news that the Official Receiver will fast-track an investigation into the directors at Carillion, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: "The fast-tracking of this investigation into the directors who led Carillion is welcome. But we also need a National Audit Office probe, followed by Parliamentary scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee to fully understand what led to Carillion's collapse."We need to know why the government felt it was not wrong to feed Carillion lucrative public sector contracts when they knew the company was in severe trouble because of its profit warnings."
Responding to comments made in 2012 by Tory MP and party vice-chair for youth Ben Bradley where he suggested unemployed young men should get vasectomies, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said:"These hugely misinformed and offensive comments should shame Mr Bradley and the Tory party. "It beggars belief that someone who has shown such contempt for young people who are out of work has been tasked by the Prime Minister to improve her party's appeal with young voters. "This is another example of a shocking lack of due diligence by May and her team when making appointments to influential roles. This ...
Wed 17th
11:04
The Labour Party takes one more step towards destruction - how it could unwind from here
I sometimes wonder what I would start my documentary about the death of the Labour Party with, years from now. Until today, I figured the first clip would be Ed Miliband's resignation speech following the 2015 election defeat. While all of Scotland bar one constituency had been wiped out, and Ed Balls, his prospective chancellor, had been unseated as well, Ed joshed about "Milifans". After today though, I may need to begin said documentary with something about this week's election of three new NEC members and that event's immediate aftermath. The election of the three Momentum folk to the NEC ...
Tue, 12:56: "At its best, however, social science can sometimes almost be as insightful as good stand-up comedy." - Kate Fox, 'Watching the English' Tue, 16:05: How Brexit has reopened old wounds on both sides of the Irish border https://t.co/btJxyQNR5Q A clear explanation. Tue, 18:05: The Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmons https://t.co/0jGajswpns Tue, 20:48: North American Bitcoin Conference won't accept bitcoin payments for last-minute tickets https://t.co/KMYJrV3CTv Yep. Wed, 08:32: Conticuere omne. @ Parlement Europ�en - Strasbourg https://t.co/gZnrpZ7whB Wed, 10:45: Why the Dutch Gave Up Manhattan for Nutmeg https://t.co/1O3XDe4UI4 It made a lot of sense at the time. Wed, 10:59: ...
Instagram photo: Am really enjoying playing with ArtRage on my new phone :) Do you own any android phone? Do you want to crap yourself? Read this I'd the answer to both the above questions is yes. Milkshake Duck is word of the year Surely it's a phrase? #pedantry miss_s_b | Sorry been a bit absent today, but... For happy reasons, though :) The worst volume control UI in the world - UX Design Collective I mean they should have just stopped at Clippy, but there is a lot of hilarious here. How to Talk to Men about Comics "Immediately ...
What will 2018 bring for my party? That's a question every local party Chair has probably asked themselves already, as we paused to reflect on the turbulence and mayhem (no pun intended) of 2017. Local elections will be on many party officers' minds, as it is in my neck of the woods, where work on finalising our pool of candidates for 2019 is already underway. The prospect of another General Election- seen by the bookies as more likely in 2019 than 2018- will never be far away. And Brexit will muddle on while the contradictions of the process become ever ...
I gave the fitness items a try on 5th January and I am pretty sure that this one was not in the best of health:- Rust is an obvious issue but clunking as it moved round indicated mechanical problems too. I asked Lydiate Parish Council to have it serviced/repaired and it has now been removed (by Sefton Council who installed it) to so see what can be done with it. I'm told that this particular piece of outdoor fitness equipment is problematic and others have had to be removed across Sefton Borough. Whether it can be repaired is yet to ...
For all intents and purposes, the struggle for control of the Labour Party was over once Momentum secured an effective majority on the party's National Executive Committee, however the real contest has just begun. As the Guardian reports, the direction of any future Labour Government depends on the make-up of the Parliamentary Party and it is in the constituencies that battle lines are being drawn. They say that Labour-supporting trade unions are quietly affiliating scores of branches to the party in key constituencies in a bid to influence future reselection battles: In what one senior Labour figure called a "cold ...
Frank-Walter Steinmeier looked a little sheepish. Standing in front of his German presidential flag, the new federal President gave his Christmas address to the German people - especially those not from a Christian tradition, he emphasised - and reminded us all that, while we might be very concerned about the lack of a new government [...] The post Where will a new radical centre emerge in Germany? Don't hold your breath appeared first on Radix.
A reminder about this Saturday's soup and home baking lunch, in aid of the Blackness Primary School playground fundraising project :
There is a by-election for the Welsh Assembly in the North Wales constituency of Alyn and Deeside on February 6th. This is an opportunity for the Welsh Liberal Democrats to begin their revival and renewal after a challenging time. The election is being fought in difficult circumstances following the suicide of the Labour politician, Carl Sergeant in November, and his son has been selected as the Labour candidate in the by-election. We have a brilliant candidate in Donna Lalek, who joined the party just over a year ago, was born and brought up in the constituency,is a founder member of ...
