For as long as I have known him, which is over 30 years now, the Market Harborough Lib Dem councillor Phil Knowles has been campaigning for better hospital services in the town. His ambition was fulfilled a year ago when the new Treatment Centre at St Luke's Hospital opened. And, as the infographic above shows, the people of the town are making good use of it. Phil tells me: "I warmly congratulate the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group on the success of the facility. It's a £7.5m investment that is paying huge dividends. "The outpatient services, state of the art X-ray ...
Over in Welwyn Hatfield, the Liberal Democrats have selected Barbara Gibson as the party's next Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC).
Amalia Illgner says it is time to end the internship system as it excludes the less privileged from the arts, media and politics. She's right. "The irony of the young academic attack on 'privilege' comes into relief when we consider that colleges and universities serve as the gatekeepers of class status in the West." Samuel Biagetti thinks checking your privilege does not offer much in the way of social critique. James Poniewozik welcomes the return of Roseanne to American television: "The Conners aren't just preserved. They're stuck. And they're stuck in a way that underlines the show's original mission of ...
Second paragraph of third section:"Hey, how long have you been back?"I don't always get on with Delany's writing, and this is a good example of a story that I admire but don't especially like. The protagonist is a professional criminal in a near-future society who goes by many different aliases, all of which have the initials H.C.E. (this is a lift from Finnegan's Wake, apparently). Two of the other characters share a name, Hawk the Singer and Arty the Hawk, a mafia don. The story is pinned by two encounters with security agent Maud Hinkle (though who knows if that ...
In 20 months, all the British Government did was initiate an unprepared Brexit and sign two entirely EU-written documents. Not only did the Government waste valuable time with Tory-internal, constitutional, and other unwinnable disputes; it also drags any material clarification about Britain's post-Brexit state beyond March 29 2019 into the so-called implementation phase. The intent is to sleepwalk the country over the point of no return, unable to reality-check any Brexit-promise they continue to uphold against all likelihood and their better knowledge. This tactic has the convenient side-effect of limiting the practicality of a timely "first referendum on the facts". ...
James Bloodworth's book "Hired: six months under cover in low-wage Britain" is a vivid description, along with some revealing interviews, of his experiences working briefly in an Amazon warehouse, as a care-worker in Blackpool, in an Admiral (insurance company) call centre in Wales and as an Uber driver in London. If you want some real information about the reality of Britain's "lowest unemployment rate for decades" please read this book. The consequences of "zero hours" contracts, unpredictability of income, late payments, underpayments, capricious dismissal, hostility to trade unions, electronic surveillance, bullying and squalid accommodation and rip-offs by unscrupulous landlords are ...
It is extraordinary to see a leader of a political party suffer a demonstration that includes many of his own MPs. This follows a letter (here, with Corbyn's reply) from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which says There is literally not a single day in which Labour Party spaces, either online or in meetings, do not repeat the same fundamental anti-Semitic slanders against Jews. We are told that our concerns are faked, and done at the command of Israel and/or Zionism (whatever that means); that anti-Semitism is merely "criticism of Israel"; that we call any and all criticism ...
Thanks to the Liverpool Echo for this picture which really sums up the difficulties that EFC will have in developing this old dock for a new stadium Three weeks ago, I did a blog about the problems which could occur ... Continue reading →
It was Rebecca Long-Bailey's turn. The hapless shadow BEIS secretary (just typing that now gave me a shudder) was the latest to be wheeled out to make some grandiose yet ultimately content free statement on behalf of the Labour Party on the subject du jour, namely how a). anti-Semitism was no longer going to be tolerated within the Labour Party and b). quite how this was going to happen being as vague as the government's Brexit negotiation strategy. She unintentionally summarised Labour's whole current problem with anti-Semitism with this "Thick of It" worthy statement: "We do take a zero tolerance ...
Nearly a century ago, Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George called for 'homes fit for heroes' for those men returning from the Great War, and it was only three years later that the National Census charted how those returning veterans tried to re-enter civilian life. While the personal data will not be released to the public until 2022, we know it will list farmers and doctors, factory-workers and teachers, dock-hands and postman; but it will not list the physical wounds or the psychological trauma that those veterans faced and dealt with for the rest of their lives. To help our ...
Mon, 12:56: RT @jdportes: The Sun corrects - thoroughly and at length - its story on tariffs & the EU Customs Union https://t.co/Fi7uP8DJbn Mon, 18:14: Monday reading https://t.co/jUQca2lNsU Mon, 18:32: My latest submission to the Boundary Commission @BCNI2018 https://t.co/naVkpOVBEV Mon, 20:19: RT @BrettArends: Why does politics make so many people act crazy?
It seems more prevalent on social media where a fierce argument is raging about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn culpability in that, but one cannot but get the impression that those who have a problem with the Labour leadership are becoming more vocal and being so in public. The Parliamentary Sketch in the Independent contains a typical account of yesterday's events in which Labour MP, John Woodcock intervened on his own party leader after Corbyn had told the Commons chamber that he had been "a robust critic of the Russian govt for more than 20 years," to ...
Lydiate in Flower is a relatively new volunteer community group which aims to try to brighten up Lydiate. It's first initiative is to put gateway planters on the roads leading into the community. The first two flower troughs are now up at both ends of Southport Road on the Maghull and Downholland Civil Parish boundaries. The photos above were taken on Southport Road and the flowers are looking great. The sponsorship is very much appreciated and the sign shows one of the sponsoring companies. More Lydiate in Flower initiatives to follow.
News reaches us that the originally planned opening in May will not happen and presently the target day to open the new station on Merseyrail's Northern Line (between Liverpool and Ormskirk) is said to be 18th June. That a major project like this fails to reach its target opening date is no surprise at all – Just look at the new station at Kenilworth where 3 opening dates have come and gone and now no dates are being offered for the opening. Let's hope Maghull North will not be on a similar track! I asked our man on the inside ...
On March 17 2018, Xi Jinping was unanimously re-elected president for five years by the 2,970 deputies of the National People's Congress of China. An improvement over 2013, when one MP voted against him and three others abstained. On 18 March 2018, Vladimir Putin was re-elected President of Russia for six years by universal suffrage, [...] The post The big shifts in China and Russia – they're very different appeared first on Radix.
I'm sure that many members will agree with me that it is often very difficult to succinctly describe what the party stands for in terms that they understand. Some will choose to quote the preamble of the constitution, that we wish people to be free from "poverty, ignorance and conformity" yet this is difficult to expand into a set of principles that apply to every different area of thought and policy. Others would choose to talk about liberty, running into the difficulty of having to carefully define what liberty means. I would suggest that we return to the roots of ...
From Blether Tay-Gither : Our March Blether will be tonight - Tuesday 27th March - at 7pm at our new venue - The Butterfly Café, 28 Commercial Street. The theme this month is The Letter "F" - bring a story about anything beginning with "F" maybe fairies or farmers, fish or flowers, fruit or furry creatures. Anything you want. What will you choose? Hope to see some of you there - all welcome!
