[IMG: It only takes one woman and on 'Today' it was Jo Swinson] Jo Swinson, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat party, was interviewed on the Today programme by host John Humphrys. At the end of the interview Jo challenged John Humphrys about whether he had apologised to... The post It only takes one woman and on 'Today' it was Jo Swinson appeared first on FeministMama @ambitiousmamas.
One moderately successful Welsh Assembly by-election down, seven council by-elections to go. Alas, only three Liberal Democrat candidates across those seven vacancies. This is, however, a reflection of the chance set of wards up for this week as across those other four the Lib Dems didn't put any candidates last time they were fought – and indeed the longer-term picture is hardly one of Lib Dems fighting these wards either. What's more one of the three wards with a Lib Dem candidate this time didn't have one last time. So it's a step forward overall, even if one of the ...
I've twice been to Lundy Island. I took a day trip from Ilfracombe when I was walking the coastal path in 1988 and spent New Year there in 2000, when I took this photograph. An attempt to do the same thing a year or two later was defeated by the weather, but that possibility is almost part of the island's charm. One of the great things about Lundy is the night skies. As you are 12 miles out in the Bristol Channel with no street lighting, they are overpowering. Seeing the stars there (and on the Dingle Peninsula in County ...
Party members have been emailed by Vince Cable tonight. He asks all of us to play our part in ensuring that the Liberal Democrats are open and welcoming to BAME people. Members are asked to read John Alderdice's report on race, ethnic minorities and the culture of the Liberal Democrats. He was asked to identify any barriers to BAME participation in the party and if there were, what should we do about them. He concludes that there are barriers, not stemming from malevolence but sometimes just not getting it and that the party needs to get its act together. All ...
Liberal Democrats were not the only people to enjoy it this morning when Jo Swinson neatly turned the tables on John Humphrys. His tone of wounder impatience in reply did him no favours. As I blogged last year: One of the many problems with Today is John Humphrys. Too often his interviewing his based on his prejudices, which became tedious years ago. It is tempting to attribute this to his age, but I suspect he has always been like that. So let's just say that the team of presenters needs to be refreshed and Humphrys is the first candidate to ...
The death of the architectural historian and journalist Gavin Stamp at the start of last month was widely mourned. Jonathan Meades wrote a eulogy for his funeral and the London Review of Books has printed it: Doctrinaire modernists armed with ancient progressive pieties were still just about in the ascendant in those days: to concern oneself, as Gavin did, with what a building actually looked like and what effect its presence might have on its surroundings was reckoned to be the height of frivolity, a sort of apostasy. The doctrinaire see what they believe in, the latitudinarian believe in what ...
Thu 8th
19:06
Lib Dem Southport Conference, places to go for food, drink and visit for interest starting with brea...
The tide comes in at Southport surrounding the longest iron pier in Britain The Lib Dem Conference is coming to Southport in March so I thought it might be helpful to if I did a guide to our town. In later posts I will go into more detail about some of the things that should be part of any visit to the town like the British Lawnmower Museum, excellent bookshops like my favourite Broadhurst's , the best places for afternoon tea (top choice Lillibet's), pubs and breweries, restaurants, Southport shrimps ,fish and chip shops, our brilliant municipal gardens, RSPB nature ...
When John Humphrys and Jon Sopel mocked the whole BBC gender pay gap controversy in the wake of Carrie Gracie's resignation last month, they weren't really held to account. There was no great show of remorse from them. The BBC could have taken them off air for a couple of days to underline that they were unimpressed with their behaviour. They and their sense of entitlement were pretty much left untouched. Until today. Jo Swinson was interviewed by John Humphrys about the new procedures to tackle sexual harassment and bullying in Parliament. At the end of the interview, this happened: ...
Second frame of third chapter: Collecting the first four issues of Alan Moore's Providence series, itself apparently both prequel and sequel to his Neonomicon (which I haven't read) and very much tied in to the Lovecraft mythos (with which I am familiar but not expert). It's the story of Robert Black, a young New York journalist in 1919, Jewish and gay and hiding both, who travels to Rhode Island to investigate a mysterious cult. (But this is not our 1919, exactly.) Each of these four issues ties to a specific Lovecraft story - "Cool Air", "The Horror at Red Hook", ...
[IMG: Not least among my irritating habits is that I often take the opposite side of the argument to whatever the consensus is at any one time, not because I necessarily believe it, but rather to test my knowledge of my own point of view. But there are times when even my ability to agitate for an unpopular cause runs aground. Donald Trump's presidency is one where the well of mischief runs dry. But there is a lesson for liberals in Mr Trump's economic policies, as his actions reveal the failings of trickle-down economics and show how the Liberal ...
Chris Wells in last week's Gazette says "The numbers add up, we must build more homes on the site of the airport" (Manston). I myself don't share such unquestioning belief, in my opinion, I feel that figures can be deceptive I'm sure there are a few figures that Chris Wells would question, particularly those relating to the number of his fellow members of UKIP in Thanet who would be quite happy, were Chris Wells to do the thing they require him, to resign. Assuming that Chris Well's view is correct, that there is no evidence that an airport would be ...
Achieving a key milestone Sutton's groundbreaking decentralised energy network project (SDEN) has achieved a key milestone with the highly insulated pipes now being laid into the ground. Reaching the delivery phase of this unique scheme to deliver low-carbon heating and hot water to local homes and businesses was marked with a Golden Shovel event attended [...]
We are the party who introduced the 5p charge for plastic bags and set up the Green Investment Bank. We led the way on investment in renewables and in green technologies. So what's next? Party members would have received a recent newsletter with a link to the party's vision on how we can save our seas from plastic pollution. We are calling for the government to commit to a Plastic-Free Charter. We need to tackle our throw-away culture by providing incentives to reduce, reuse and recycle. I couldn't agree more. Aberporth, in West Wales, has decided to live without plastic. ...
Thu 8th
13:06
Man accused of bomb hoax on train at Hinckley claimed he actually said 'bum', court told
Our Headline of the Day Award goes to the Leicester Mercury.
Nick Clegg is most probably right when he says that the chance of us having a 'soft Brexit' whereby we remain in the single market has gone. As the Telegraph reports, the former Deputy Prime Minister said that it now seems unlikely that Theresa May will stand up to her right wing and insist on a deal that keeps us in the free trade area, that there is a very real danger that the UK could crash out of the EU without a deal. The choice that faces MPs and hopefully the country therefore is one of revisiting the referendum ...
I am a feminist. I have called myself that since the mid-2000s and by that term I simply mean that men and women deserve equality. To be valued equally and to have equal opportunity to make the most of our lives. I have worked for the election of female parliamentarians. I was part of the team that secured Sharon Bowles' re-election and Catherine Bearder's election for the first time in the 2009 European Elections. Five years later, I was Catherine Bearder's running mate (Sharon having decided not to stand again) and I chaired the regional campaign. We raised about £250,000 ...
A global study of traffic and congestion published by INRIX has shown that A56 from Salford up to Prestwich is the FIFTH worst road in the UK for traffic congestion, outside of London. The A6 through Stockport is the 8th worst, the A560/A6 through Salford the 10th worst. More information INRIX and this MEN article. So who thought it was a good idea to make the A56 narrower through Prestwich? The Labour councillors who run Bury Council need to listen to ordinary people who are telling them that congestion in Prestwich is a nightmare. It is not just the A56, ...
Wed, 12:56: David Crockett and the Border farm split by the wild frontier https://t.co/pIOymm7g8L Report from Ireland. Wed, 15:51: The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog, by Doris Lessing https://t.co/dUHaYlZmyJ Thu, 10:45: As U.S. Culls Diplomats, China Is Empowering Its Ambassadors https://t.co/V71SzJgnHv Fascinating from @PeterMartin_PCM.
Cadburys to remove 'Easter' from Easter eggs to avoid causing offence This is almost certainly the best article I have read on the internet in a long long time. xkcd: Backpack Decisions I identified with this A LOT. And of course it doesn't say that the best two backpacks you will ever own are The One You Bought On a Whim For 6th Form 22 Years Ago (that's the red and black Nike one, people who have seen me with backpacks) or the Knox Aeropack that they only made for one year because the cost of production was more than ...
Optimists and pessimists alike can find plenty to feed on about the current state of the Liberal Democrats. Dramatic council by-election gains. Stuck in single figures in the opinion polls almost constantly for over seven years, with our best monthly average only 11%. A massive growth in party membership taking us to all-time record levels. A local council base that has been shrinking steadily since the peak of 22.3% of councillors being Lib Dem in 1996. A distinctive position on the big policy issue of our times, providing plenty of political space for the party. The list could go on. ...
Thu 8th
10:21
Sal Brinton talks of being stuck in House of Lords as peer refused to move to let her past
The House of Lords debated the proposed works to the Palace of Westminster this week. Sal Brinton took advantage of the opportunity to make a plea for the refurbished Parliament to be properly accessible. She highlighted some of the ways in which the current set-up fails disabled people. She also spoke of an experience where one peer wouldn't actually let her past to leave a Lords debate, making her late for a meeting. My Lords, in the wonderful elegance of parliamentary language, we have talked much already about "patch and mend". The restoration and renewal of the buildings and the ...
Last month, Shropshire Council announced changes to parking charges across the county, including Ludlow. (See my earlier blog for the details.) Charges in the town centre will increase while charges for parking around the centre will generally fall. Time limits on parking will be abolished on the streets and in the car parks. This move, and the high charges on town centre streets, will damage local trade, as will reduction of free pop and shop parking to just five minutes. The changes are being driven by the Shropshire Council's need to raise more money for highways and related projects in ...
I was so incredibly proud of two of our Lib Dem MPs yesterday. First, Layla Moran stood up at PMQs and asked Theresa May to abolish the "archaic, dickensian and cruel" Vagrancy Act which criminalises rough sleeping, adding another layer of indignity to an already horrific situation for vulnerable people. Here's the exchange in full: Under the Vagrancy Act 1824, rough sleeping is illegal. The Act was used nearly 2,000 times last year to drag homeless people before the courts. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already repealed it, so will the Prime Minister support my Bill to consign this heartless, ...
I am pleased to say, after considerable correspondence I have had with various parties, the lighting in the pathway from Simpson Avenue in the Ninewells Village hospital housing down to Clayhills Drive is now finally repaired and working again - see left : The lighting had been out of action for some time and there was a question mark as to who had responsibility for this lighting which sits south of the Ninewells Hospital grounds and north of Clayhills Drive. I am grateful to all parties I have contacted for moving this forward - NHS Tayside, Netlach (who manage the ...
With the end of the Cold War, we believed that the discussion about nuclear weapons had shifted from the superpowers to 'proliferating' middle powers, such as Pakistan, Iran or North Korea. The signing of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between Moscow and Washington reassured the Europeans by calling for the dismantling on our [...] The post The strategic return of nuclear weapons appeared first on Radix.
Work continues apace with the construction of Merseyrail's new Maghull North Station with the station building itself start to rise from the ground. The photo below illustrates the situation on Monday 05th February:- Click on the photo to enlarge it Behind the station the progress of house building on the Poppy Fields/Ashworth South site can also be clearly seen. This was the site of the former Moss Side Hospital which became world famous for its treatment of shell-shock sufferers during WW1.
