My old Campaign Corner series looked to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. The pieces still have a lot of relevance, so welcome to my latest periodic update to previous posts – and do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest for future posts. Today's Campaign Corner question: I have built up quite a large number of emails for residents in my ward and I'm expecting a close fight in May. How can I get the most out of emails to them? Here are three ways to ensure that you make email ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

The Thames and Severn Canal, which was finally abandoned in 1941, ran for 28 miles from the Stroudwater Navigation in Stroud to the Thames just above Lechlade. Efforts have been underway to restore it since the 1970s and the Inland Waterways Association explains the progress that has been made: Cotswold Canals Trust aims to restore the Thames & Severn Canal from its junction with the Stroudwater Navigation in Stroud through to the River Thames. With the Stroudwater Navigation, the restored canal would re-create an alternative through route between the rivers Thames and Severn from the Kennet & Avon Canal and ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

These days we all make tea in mugs with teabags, when you have to put the milk in last. But for those civilised people who still use a teapot, the answer to the age-old debate is that you should put the milk in first. An old press release from the Royal Society of Chemistry explains the science behind this conclusion: Milk should be added before the tea, because denaturation (degradation) of milk proteins is liable to occur if milk encounters temperatures above 75°C. If milk is poured into hot tea, individual drops separate from the bulk of the milk and ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Embed from Getty Images Ned Simons from Huffington Post interviewed Vince Cable on Valentine's Day - the Lib Dem leader was planning to meet his wife Rachel at a "nice romantic restaurant down by the river" later. They had a wide ranging and enlightening conversation. Here are a few of the more important things Vince said. On Brexit: Cable says had Theresa May gone for a soft-Brexit, by which he means keeping the UK in the single market and customs union, a lot of pro-EU voters would have gone along with it. "I think a lot of Remainers would have ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

There has been pressure for some time to cut the pay that some Shropshire Councillors receive. Now at last, we have recommendations that take out the excesses but provides enough income for councillors like me who don't have a stack of cash in the bank. That won't, of course, stop some people thinking we are paid too much. The plans will reduce the overall bill for councillors' allowances by £37,400. Pay for councillors is called an "allowance". I don't think that is helpful. The money councillors receive is paid as PAYE. We fork out for tax and National Insurance on ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

Last year, I celebrated St Valentine's Day by presenting Ros with sixty thousand breeding pairs of Magellenic penguins. Not literally, you understand, because whilst they're cute, they do smell a bit, and the cottage is really too small for sixty pairs, let alone a thousand times as many. But you get the drift. And so, my task this year was to find something similarly unusual. So, why not flamingos? In the middle of a desert... Luckily, flamingos like saltwater, and the Atacama is famous for its salt flats, in which can be found three of the six varieties of flamingo ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy

A lot of the Doctor Who stories starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor were destroyed by the BBC in the 1970s, surviving only in audio taped by fans, photographs taken on set and a few clips that were preserved by happenstance. One of the most grievous losses is the very first Troughton story, The Power of the Daleks, originally shown in six episodes in late 1966 and never seen in the UK again. (Rumours still circulate of exported copies surviving in some unlikely ex-colonial archive.) However, to mark the 50th anniversary of the original showing, the BBC released an ...

This week, Willie Rennie gave a keynote speech to the David Hume Institute in Edinburgh. He said that all pro-Europeans must step up and called on particularly those supporters of the Labour Party who oppose Corbyn's position to join with us to campaign against Brexit. I know many in the Labour Party feel very frustrated by Jeremy Corbyn's approach to Europe. His long standing Bennite antipathy. His lacklustre participation in the referendum. His failure to put any real pressure on the Conservative Government. His oscillating position on our future relationship with our neighbours. When we look back at this time ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

The RV1 bus runs, or rather should run, near where I work. But as near where I work is the huge London Bridge station redevelopment the route has been on diversion for years. Now it faces being halved on top of that without consultation - and despite it being one of few zero-emission bus routes.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Plans: - much drilling; put up remaining speaker brackets in living room + two shoe tidies - deep clean kitchen - sort out pocket on leggings Actual: - be brought breakfast in bed by lovely boyfriend - browse through flash sale at clothing website - doggie cuddles. The doggie cuddles are so nice, though... [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

YouGov
Sun 18th
11:00

My tweets

Sat, 12:15: BSFA short list: Goodreads/LibraryThing stats https://t.co/93iOdiI8M0 Sat, 12:56: RT @Davos: We've got no idea how much our world is changing. This is how far we've come https://t.co/Ogzd82XbNi https://t.co/HyUrrQi4yw Sat, 13:57: RT @lorddeben: Numbers take population into account and are directly comparable. The absolutely unarguable fact is that, compared with any... Sat, 15:10: Boekenfestijn! (@ Brabanthal in Heverlee, Vlaams-Brabant) https://t.co/4Q6nFvQWTx Sat, 15:27: Rebecca (1940 film and 1936 novel) https://t.co/X86Djsm6T8 Sat, 16:05: The Florida Douglas High School Shooting Was an Anti-Semitic Hate Crime And Nobody's Talking About It https://t.co/rt4JIRYnf7 Yep. Sat, 17:55: RT @apcoworldwide: For years, the #MunichSecurityConference has been ...

Here are some houses that even you can afford to buy None of them cost over £50k. I'm very amused by the writer's descriptions of Bradford, which feel sort of like David Attenborough describing some strange new landscape. miss_s_b | I got Doctor Who Fluxx today... ... and here are my suggestions as to how it could be improved Why autism is much more than an "excuse", and why it matters I Wrote A Star Wars Tweet, And All I Got Was This Fascinating Snapshot Of Sexism In The Modern Age Room 207 Press: On a Thousand Walls #11: Ghostwatch ...

Sun 18th
10:31

Sasch Funke: MZ

"All these old records. Why don't you choose something for the young people?" Lord Bonkers asked me the other day. So here is Sascha Funke, who: likes to play unreleased sounds in DJ sets, which lately go beyond the average definition of techno and house and also present disco, wave, electro, cosmic, Krautrock and early electronic dance music.I do like the combination of electro and piano that you get later on here, though it takes a while to get there. It reminds you of the old classical music joke: Knock knock. Who's there. Knock knock. Who's there. Knock knock. Who's ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The party is looking for a new Head of Membership and Engagement to help build a stronger relationship between the party and its members. It's a full time post based in London. You need to apply by tomorrow, though. Here are the details of the post: Reporting to the Director for People, the Head of Membership & Engagement will review the party's membership portfolio, data and behaviours of members, benchmarking against other membership organisations to identify successful models, brands and innovative ideas in order to recruit and deliver new, diverse members to the continue to grow the party beyond its ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

By all accounts the controversy at Labour's National Policy Forum yesterday, massively eclipsed that at the rather more predictable extraordinary general meeting of UKIP, which was happening at the same time. Videos have appeared on-line that purport to show female Labour figures being bullied into submission over the election of a key policy position that was subsequently postponed. Some Labour MPs have gone on the record to express their disquiet at what happened. As the Telegraph reports, witnesses have hit out at what they believe was the inappropriate behaviour of National Executive Committee (NEC) chairman Andy Kerr. They quote Labour ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

We had to leave the seaside goodbye, for our next stop was beckoning. An efficient transfer to Santiago Airport got us there in good time for our flight to Calama, in the north of Chile. Calama is a mining town, the centre of Chile's copper industry, and apparently relatively unlovely as a result. But we were onbound to an oasis. San Pedro de Atacama is just that, an oasis in the heart of the Atacama Desert. And, as you might guess, it's dry, very dry, so I was somewhat surprised to be greeted on our first evening by a gentle ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy

On Wednesday the Conservatives on South Gloucestershire set a budget containing £36 million in cuts in 2019-2022, including over £16 million from adult and children's social services. This was despite a 5.99% council tax rise, including 3% for social care services. Last week Claire Young chaired a detailed scrutiny of the budget where the Conservatives admitted they don't yet know how many of these cuts will be made. While the Liberal Democrats support some elements, such as the ongoing commitment to keeping free parking to support our town centres and money for school improvement, we could not support a budget ...

Posted by Paul Hulbert on Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington

Morning coffee at The Atkinson in a café run as a social enterprise by the charity Autism Initiatives called A Great Little Place is recommended .This venue is part of the Atkinson Art Gallery/Museum/Theatre/Library complex on Lord St next to the Town Hall. There is lots going on there during the conference, check out their calendar of events Caron Lindsay rather jumped the gun by mentioning Afternoon Tea when she was reporting the most read Libdem blogs last week. Now is the moment: Southport is fortunate to have a goodly number of independent tea room. We do, of course have ...

Posted on birkdale focus

The clearance of tree cover around Junction 1 of the M58, prior to it being made into a full junction, is complete and it's changed the landscape completely:- Looking towards Poppy Fields Trees to sawdust:-) Giddygate Lane entrance and of course the fly tippers have visited too Click on the photos to enlarge them

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Further to my update last Wednesday about bus diversions during the temporary closure of Glamis Road between the rounadbouts with Blackness Road and Dickson Avenue, the City Council has now advised of an amendment to this to accommodate access to Royal Victoria Hospital. Here's the council's update : "The Roads Maintenance Partnership has taken the decision to allow bus services X7/8 and 204 to access Royal Victoria Hospital. Diversions for services X7/8 and 204 are now complicated and therefore not described in detail but in simple terms passengers normally boarding at Glamis Road can use Royal Victoria Hospital as a ...

eUKhost

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43088644 The BBC has the story on its web site – see link above This article says it all about Trump

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus
Sun 18th
08:02

Shopping as a Lifestyle

It has often been noted that we live in a materialist age, where we are increasingly judged by what we own, rather than what sort of person we are. Advertising pressures us to build up our self-image by buying more; indeed, the proponents of free market capitalism would argue that by boosting consumption we grow the [...]

Posted by jonathanfryer on Jonathan Fryer