Fri 13th
23:12

Listen to Mr Asquith

Here is the Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith making the case for Lloyd George's 'People's Budget' in 1909.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Embed from Getty Images This week Antonia Quirke from BBC Radio 4's Film Programme visited the headquarters of my favourite television channel Talking Pictures TV. They turned out to be a pebble-dashed detached house in Hertfordshire, but this is no kitchen-table operation. As Noel Cronin, who runs the channel with his daughter and son-in-law, told her in their interview, the channel attracts audiences of up to 1.3m, spends £1m a year on film rights and makes a profit. The still above comes from the superior early Dirk Bogarde film Hunted, which Talking Pictures screened again last night. It shows Bogarde ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

A legal opinion prepared by Matrix Chambers and published by the House of Commons Committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport today shows a 'prima facie case' for at least four separate electoral offences committed by Vote Leave in the EU referendum campaign. The opinion is based on testimony from a third whistleblower – Mark ... Continue reading With their incendiary opinion on Vote Leave's alleged electoral offences, Matrix Chambers bring us into the real world

Posted by Tom King on Never Cruel Nor Cowardly

Second paragraph of third chapter: The atmosphere in the Trout was subdued for some days afterwards. Malcolm went to school, did his homework, fetched and carried in the inn, and read over and over again the secret message in the acorn. It wasn't an easy time; everything just then seemed hung about with an unhappy air of suspicion and fear, quite unlike the normal world, as Malcolm thought of it, the place he was used to living in, where everything was interesting and happy. This is the first of the WSFS YA finalists that I have read; also the longest ...

Watford Mayor Dorothy Thornhill visits the Vibe 107.6FM studios. Whether you've lived in Watford all your life or just a few years, you will probably notice the transformation of the town. Over last sixteen years Dorothy as Mayor has made Watford the town it is today. In 2006, I set out to bring Watford its own brand new local radio station. The idea was to try and convince the regulator Ofcom that Watford could sustain a full-time community radio station, predominantly aimed at under 35's. It was important that the station was presented in an upbeat, vibrant way that would ...

Posted by Matt Cadman on Liberal Democrat Voice

Following another fatal Tesla crash, accident investigators have announced that they have stopped working with the company. Self-driving cars urgently need 'ethical black boxes' so that we can all learn from their mistakes. Self-driving cars are learning to drive. The algorithms that control them need to be fed vast quantities of real world data in order to improve. Cities and freeways, particularly in the US, are the laboratories in which they are being trained. Companies like Waymo, Uber and Tesla would argue that this real-world experience is vital for machine learning. Others would say that it creates an experiment in ...

Posted by Jack Stilgoe and Alan Winfield on Political science | The Guardian

Saturday 9th June is the day when a new campaign to end racial disadvantage within the Party begins. It will replace Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats and operate as the Liberal Democrat Campaign for Race Equality. This move has been inspired to some extent by the work done by Lord John Alderdice which states starkly that the Party has so far failed to properly ensure that it is representative of all the racial groups in our country. The new name demonstrates a new sense of purpose and direction and gives a clear indication that the organisation welcomes membership from everyone in ...

Posted by Roderick Lynch on Liberal Democrat Voice

F FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday 13 April 2018 Helen Belcher was re-selected as the Liberal Democrats' prospective parliamentary candidate for Chippenham at a packed meeting in Melksham on Thursday evening. Over 100 party members crowded into the pavilion in King George V Park to hear three strong candidates express their views on international relations, local [...]

Posted by Helen Belcher on Challenging Journeys (Phase 2)

Embed from Getty Images This letter is in response to Vince's request for feedback on the Syrian question Dear Vince Cable, Thank you for giving we members an opportunity to forward our views to you on the possible military intervention by the UK in Syria. This is an extremely difficult problem which seems to place us in a lose-lose situation. If we do not intervene we appear to stand by impotently whilst terrible wickedness takes place, including the internationally illegal use of chemical weapons. If we do intervene there is a strong possibility of making a bad situation worse, as ...

Posted by Peter Wrigley on Liberal Democrat Voice

BBC to follow up Rivers of Blood speech by asking Katie Hopkins to recite Mein Kampf If you like what you see here (or even if you don't) please consider dropping me a tip: [IMG: Paypal Donate Button] [IMG: Buy Me an uncaffeinated beverage (because I'm allergic to coffee) at ko-fi.com] [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

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I was astonished to receive a report from the Institute for Government, telling us how digital public services will save £46bn. Leave aside my frequent criticisms of Universal Credit ('digital by default'), where I have explained why the service will never work in a digital mode, except to say: why didn't the authors have anything to say [...] The post Why digital services fail appeared first on Radix.

Posted by John Seddon on Radix
Fri 13th
11:00

My tweets

Thu, 12:13: RT @apcoworldwide: The Art of the 'New Deal?' - The #EU today released its new consumer rights package. Our Brussels experts @DuplanLea an... Thu, 12:56: 'The Simpsons' To 'The Problem With Apu': Drop Dead https://t.co/6c3eFrQtVs Lisa, the show's unshakable crusader fo... https://t.co/neo15ENjiz Thu, 16:05: Junot D�az: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma https://t.co/yUkkLlbTTo Tremendous piece on the personal impact of sexual abuse. Thu, 16:14: RT @apcoworldwide: Here's a closer look at the new German Government from Johannes Sibbor and APCO's team of experts in #Germany: https://t... Thu, 18:10: Time for a Juncker re-set: https://t.co/WPN2OnqGrT @sirgrahamwatson on the Western Balkans. ...

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. – – – It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. Smedley D. Butler Major General Smedley knew what he was talking about. He achieved the highest rank possible in the US Marines and was the most decorated marine. He said the only two reasons for armed conflict were the defence of our homes and of basic laws and rights. One is an external threat and the other is ...

Posted by Steve Trevethan on Liberal Democrat Voice

Asa Bennett had an article put up on the Telegraph website yesterday afternoon entitled "Could Theresa May get away with a customs union climbdown?"For close watchers of all things Brexit, it is the first in what I imagine will be a long series of articles by Leave supporting pundits preparing the ground for Britain remaining in a customs union with the EU after leaving. As in, being in a customs union as an assumed permanent state of affairs. What's the real difference between being in "the" Customs Union and being in "a" customs union with the EU again? Almost entirely ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

Embed from Getty Images The Liberal Democrat Voice team would like to send our heartfelt best wishes to Norman Lamb as he recovers from his "very minor stroke". It's no exaggeration to say that Norman is a much loved member of the Lib Dem family. His personal courage, energy and passion are much admired. Take care, Norman, and we hope you recover well!

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

The Liverpool Echo has the story on its web site – see link above Must admit this clearly long running story has not hit my radar previously. Is this in a round about way (and never to be admitted officially of course) some form of apology from Knowsley Council for demolishing Prescot Leisure Centre?

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

There is an interesting report of the meeting on Rimrose Valley Friends web site – see link above Having covered this issue numerous times on this blog site I have to say that in my humble opinion this matter started to go wrong many, many years ago when it was first mooted that the Peel were thinking of expanding at Seaforth. What should have happened back then was a detailed access study (involving residents from the potentially affected communities) to look at all the implications – positive and negative – of such an expansion. I also think that study ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

2 days and counting until the Chichester District Council By Election for Rogate ward. Bring it on! pic.twitter.com/yCMElNjMJF — Dr Kate O'Kelly (@kfbok) April 10, 2018 * Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

Posted by Paul Walter on Liberal Democrat Voice

Look, I don't write this stuff. I just edit it for him. OK? Friday Plans for this summer's gay conversion camps here at the Hall are in hand. I know these are a controversial idea, but it would take a heart of stone not to help the parents who come to me. "We've tried everything," they sob, "bought him Doris Day records, but he is just not interested." This summer I have decided the students will camp, and I use the word advisedly, by the lake. Then there is the fixture list for my XI this summer. Among our regular ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

As far as I aware the Liberal Democrats are the only party who are proposing to ring-fence a tax rise to provide additional funding for the health service. It has been our policy for some time to try and save the NHS by putting a penny in the pound on income tax to give the NHS and social care services the cash they need. Now it appears that this idea may be gaining some traction with the public, though it does not look as if we are getting credit for it at present. The Guardian reports that a large face-to-face ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
eUKhost

I have now spoken with many residents in the areas of the West End affected by the recycling changes from 16th April. The only parts of the ward unaffected are the streets around the West End Lanes and Perth Road area closest to the lanes as they were in the last phase of the recycling rollout last year and already on the revised recycling arrangements. The rest of the West End Ward was covered by the original Phase 1 and 2 recycling rollouts in 2015 so are affected because of the introduction of the Scottish Government's Code of Practice (in ...

The cost of on-street resident's permits is to rise from £50 to £100 a year. Shropshire Council says the scheme will improve parking opportunities for residents in restricted areas. Parking is at a premium for residents in central Ludlow but one of the limitations of this scheme is that it does not consider the needs of town centre businesses. The new scheme, which also is also likely to restrict permits to one per household, is expected to be implemented by the end of 2018. The scheme was approved by Shropshire Council's Cabinet on Wednesday with the rider that consultation with ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

On Sunday I was invited by residents of Byermoor, the smallest village in my ward, to have a look at the flytipping taking place next to the school. The amount of dumped waste is staggering. I have since taken the issue up with officers.

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace

There are bits of my life that feel like groundhog day, especially when it comes to printing and delivering Focuses.

Posted by jonathanwallace on Jonathan Wallace