Broadcast between 1967 and 1969, Do Not Adjust Your Set was an ITV comedy series for children. It starred three-fifths of the Monty Python team in the shape of Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle. The show also used animations by an American called Terry Gilliam, which was how they came to meet. Two more actors on the show were Denise Coffey and David Jason. It is their contributions that I remember most clearly. The latter rather expected to be asked to join the others in their new project, which became Monty Python, but he wasn't. But then this ...
Natalie Bloomer lists 32 homeless people who have died on our streets this winter. She is sure there are many more. "The Social Liberal Forum is publishing this book to contribute to a Progressive Alliance of Ideas, People and Campaigns. Contributors including leading Liberal Democrats and people from other political backgrounds and some from outside formal parties." Gordon Lishman will tell you all about it. "Whatever the people in charge did or didn't know, they should stand down. Horrendous crimes happened on their watch. They owe it to the hundreds of lives wrecked as a result of what happened under ...
One of the fundamental features of a democracy is that not only do voters get to choose who to vote for, they also get to choose what criteria they use.
A little idle googling last October led to the discovery that Giles Cheatle, a left-arm spinner who played for Sussex in the 1970s, has a daughter. And that daughter, Lauren Cheatle, is a promising left-arm seamer and a member of the Australian women's squad. The post about them has a lovely photograph of her in action. In a charity shop on Saturday I picked up a copy of John Barclay's Lost in the Long Grass. Barclay played in the same Sussex side as Cheatle as an opening batsman and off spinner. He later became the club's captain, though Cheatle had ...
This weekend, Conference will get a vote for my proposals of a new disciplinary process for the Party. This is the culmination of a series of consultation phases, and has been designed with members' feedback at the forefront of our minds. You can read my report here, and paper copies will be available at Conference. I will also be holding a Q&A session during the Saturday lunchtime fringe slot in the Marine Suite at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Southport. If you are attending Conference you are very welcome to attend and ask me any questions you may have, ahead ...
Current So, Anyway..., by John Cleese A History of the Universe in 100 Objects, by Steve Tribe and James Goss Iain M. Banks, by Paul Kincaid Last books finished The Rift, by Nina Allan Provenance, by Ann Leckie Planesrunner by Ian McDonald Uncanny Valley, by Greg Egan An Outline of the History of Pharmacy in Ireland, by William D. Moore M.B. The Enclave, by Anne Charnock "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", by Samuel R. Delany The Murders of Molly Southbourne, by Tade Thompson Next books Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift Julian, by Gore Vidal Something Changed, ed. ...
The Social Liberal Forum is publishing this book to contribute to a Progressive Alliance of Ideas, People and Campaigns. Contributors including leading Liberal Democrats and people from other political backgrounds and some from outside formal parties. The Four are Helen Flynn, Iain Brodie-Browne, Gordon Lishman and Ekta Prakash and the book addresses major challenges facing progressives in the 21st Century. They believe that the revival of progressive politics in the UK must be based on winning the battle of ideas. All four come from the North of England and their approach reflects their anger about the state of UK politics ...
I'm on the final day of my first cycle of chemotherapy, so the pill load will come down tomorrow. I've always hated swallowing pills and I've swallowed more of them in the last five days than I have in the last ten years (*). So far I've felt rather wiped out and haven't been sleeping particularly well, but I am ... The post Pills, small steps and chocolate appeared first on ten pence piece.
Above is the Green's Lane swing bridge in the open position for a narrow boat. Green's Lane becomes Eagar Lane in Lydiate. The second photo shows one of the barriers snapped off and on the ground awaiting repair. The damage was caused by the very high winds associated with the 'Beast from the East' storm. From talking to the Canal and Rivers Trust staff attending the broken barrier it was not the only location where such barriers were snapped off by the high winds. I guess they are a bit like a sail when in their open position. A new ...
As Italy has voted, I am, as the son of an Italian, and a practitioner in the arts, thinking of Giuseppe Verdi and of the country he helped to create. Verdi is mainly known as one of the greatest composers of opera, but though that was his main and great talent, he had one for politics too. At a time when Italy was a collection of small and to some extent, rival principalities and states, the Risorgimento movement he supported, was fighting, for a nation of Italy, a unified State, the country we now know. Some interpret this as a ...
Mon 5th
13:25
TfL's official figures claim I'm responsible for more than 1 in 4 of all bus shelter graffiti report...
I appear to be responsible for 28% of all graffiti reports at bus stops across London. Making those reports rather than placing the graffiti, I hasten to add. (But not reporting this sort of graffiti, of course.) Over a quarter of all the graffiti reports across London are from me? Eek. If, that is, you believe Transport for London's response to my freedom of information request about graffiti at bus shelters. I was interested in how quickly graffiti gets removed as my impression has been that TfL has got much slower at doing this. It hasn't, as far as I ...
The Spring conference will be discussing migration policy in Southport, on the basis of a carefully-written consultation paper. This is a particularly difficult topic for Liberals. Almost all of us would prefer to live in a world in which borders were open, and immigrants and refugees were welcomed. But global population growth, combined with state collapse, civil conflict and climate change, are combining to create a rising flow of migrants - driven both by political disorder and economic deprivation - towards the safe and prosperous countries of Western Europe. Many of them are trafficked on their way, maltreated as they ...
Branches of Liberal Democrats Overseas to be established
In 1997, the Labour Party inherited a balanced budget from the Tories and for well over ten years we had Gordon Brown telling us that he had got rid of the boom and bust cycle. By 2009 the deficit had ballooned to £171 billion, higher than during the recessions of the 1980s, the 1990s and even when the Labour party went to the IMF, cap in hand, in 1976 (another fine mess they got us into) put together. Economic orthodoxy maintained by Labour and and the Tories for the last forty years or so ensures the same economic models: over ...
Sun, 12:09: RT @tconnellyRTE: Brexit draft text and May's speech, now what next? via @RTENewsNow https://t.co/OCXaNthXZy Sun, 12:56: Spooky! https://t.co/JQAVbaFsUs Sun, 15:19: Who Is The Doctor, by Graeme Burk and Robert Smith? https://t.co/yvKgXCtWMH Sun, 16:05: Brexiters adopt the sonic screwdriver strategy https://t.co/cTlCCDNsRq I had missed this glorious linking of Doctor... https://t.co/i01cuMDRGP Sun, 19:00: RT @APHClarkson: What British journalists call political chaos European journalists call proportional representation. Sun, 19:03: RT @EU_Commission: We take the first steps towards a "Free Interrail pass for Europeans turning 18" with a budget of €12 million for 2018.... Sun, 19:07: What has Liam Fox actually achieved ...
Home Office warned over plans to block immigration data access for EU citizens Now why might the home office want to block people's access to the information the home office holds about them? Could you cope with eight different jobs a week? An interesting article about how academics are members of the precariat too If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? Turns out it's just chance. It's nice when science confirms what logic suggests. Lord Coe gave 'misleading' answers over doping allegations, says DCMS report This is my shocked face Housing crisis: 15,000 new Manchester homes and not a ...
A trip to the men's toilets at the British Library on Euston Road may seem an unusual tourist tip for those visiting London, especially if you're not a man. But there's a good reason for the tip. It's the amazing optical illusion next to them.
Mon 5th
10:40
Remainers are beginning to lull themselves into a false sense of security that Brexit won't happen. ...
Tony Blair has said very recently that he now thinks there is a 50% chance Brexit won't happen. If you go on Twitter and search through the #FBPE pro-European hashtag, you will find a lot of people who have almost convinced themselves that not only will Brexit not happen, it can't happen. Remainers are starting to fall into a weird sense of complacency given the situation. We have a governing party who is determined to see Brexit through. Even the most pro-Remain Tory MPs (bar Ken Clarke) talk about simply softening Brexit via retaining Single Market membership (and sometimes, they ...
More than 300 people came together to save Harthill Green Spaces in January. Most of them would accept a compromise whereby Beechley House and a small area near it would be retained for public or private sector housing After 4+ ... Continue reading →
Spotted in Saturday's Guardian, an article in a series of celebrity cooking with a difference, where Stephen Bush attempts to cook meals suggested by celebrities and comments on how he got on. It would be fair to say that he wasn't impressed with Paul Newman... Miriam González Durántez, on the other hand, seems to have been rather more convincing; On Wednesday I make meatballs. Because González Durántez - or "Notorious MGD" as I have taken to referring to her - is a badass, her recipe for her children's meatballs includes a glass of white wine. They're delicious. By Thursday I ...
Hopes that the largely unfair and arbitrary sanctions policy practised by the Department for Work and Pensions might be moderated have been dashed as a result of Ministers shelving a promised reform. The Independent reports that a "yellow card" system, giving claimants 14 days to challenge a decision to dock their benefits on the grounds it was imposed wrongly, was pledged more than two years ago in October 2015. But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has now admitted that the move has been postponed because "an evaluation has proved complex". No date for its implementation has been agreed. ...
Firstly, I have to get something off my chest – The irony of Sefton Council promoting volunteering when only a short time ago it treated volunteers who wanted to try to run libraries, which the Council was closing, like they were 3rd class citizens is not lost on me. Don't get me wrong I'm a volunteer and I love volunteers who do so much for their communities, neighbours and our wider society. My volunteering is with Maghull in Bloom, Lydiate in Flower, the Frank Hornby Trust and Lydiate Parish Council but I so wish that Sefton Council had not been ...
So the government now has a Brexit plan having had an awayday at Chequers, and Jeremy Corbyn has made a speech that gives some direction to Labour's view. I don't think so No one seems to know where we are going on Brexit. I say stop it now and fix the fundamental problems of extreme [...] The post Why we need to shift taxes onto accumulated wealth appeared first on Radix.
The TUC's General Secretary has accepted an invitation to speak to a group of cross-party opposition leaders about the TUC's position on Brexit. Frances O'Grady will meet with the Westminster leaders of the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party to discuss the need for a Brexit that protects workers' rights, jobs and livelihoods of millions of people across the UK. The General Secretary will also set out why the TUC believes that single market membership and customs union should be on the table for the next phase of Brexit negotiations. The meeting is set to take place ...
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm glad that last week's "Beast from the East" has passed. Whilst here in Mid Suffolk, the snow has now pretty much melted, there are still some of you digging yourselves out, and good luck to you. But neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night prevents a Day Editor from performing their duties, so what have we got for you today? We kick off with news of cross-party co-operation to oppose the impacts of Brexit, courtesy of the Party's press team, and it will be interesting to see how tomorrow's meeting goes. ...
The TUC's General Secretary has accepted an invitation to speak to a group of cross-party opposition leaders about the TUC's position on Brexit. Frances O'Grady will meet with the Westminster leaders of the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party to discuss the need for a Brexit that protects workers' rights, jobs and livelihoods of millions of people across the UK. The General Secretary will also set out why the TUC believes that single market membership and customs union should be on the table for the next phase of Brexit negotiations. The meeting is set to take place ...
