I took this on a soft day in the early 1980s. A few years ago this pedestrian crossing was replaced by an overengineered footbridge. I suspect that few people use it.
Commenting on reports that Theresa May's spokesperson has said the EU Withdrawal Bill will return to the House of Commons in 'weeks rather than months', Lord Wallace, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, said:"The Tory government is blindly drifting into a world where the UK will not be able to leave the EU by March."Even if Theresa May doesn't shelve the EU Withdrawal Bill for months, there are many other Brexit Bills that are still waiting in the queue behind that. We haven't even seen the Immigration or Agriculture Bills yet, for example."The Prime Minister's cowardice comes at a ...
Commenting on the announcement that Theresa May has put nine new Tory Peers into the House of Lords, Liberal Democrat Leader in the Lords, Dick Newby said: "This is a cynical response from Theresa May to losing a string of votes in the Lords in recent weeks, and is a desperate bid to quell opposition to the Conservatives' reckless Brexit. The fact that she is doing this on the Friday evening before the Royal wedding is frankly pathetic. "This is a desperate grab for power by a regime losing its grip on Parliament, public opinion and even its own backbenches. ...
We Liberals say we believe in local control, but no one has done more to put that ideal into practice than the Liberal and then Liberal Democrat administration that ran the London Borough of Tower Hamlets between 1986 and 1994. As LCC Municipal explained at the end of last year: in 1986, the Liberals took control of the Borough, with a one vote majority. Their manifesto "Power to the Hamlets" proposed a radical new form of decentralised local government. Seven Neighbourhoods were to be created: Bethnal Green, Bow, Globe Town, Isle of Dogs, Poplar, Stepney and Wapping. Each would be ...
Enthusiastic Liberal Democrats are heading to Lewisham to help our fabulous candidate Lucy Salek who has already started campaigning with a visit from Vince Cable earlier this week. Great morning with @lucyvsalek in #LewishamEast, meeting traders and shoppers in Catford. Very warm reception. Voters rightly concerned about knife crime, secondary schools and Labour's support for Tory Brexit. Lucy would be a great MP, standing up for Lewisham on these issues. pic.twitter.com/Ti0x7O30cv — Vince Cable (@vincecable) May 16, 2018 There's lots going on this weekend. Here's how to help. This was originally posted as a comment by Michael Andrewes here: There ...
As widely expected, the Government has announced the appointment of 10 new Conservative peers (subject to approval), as well as one for the DUP. This is despite the fact that the Conservative group in the upper chamber is already larger than any other, and the move is clearly designed to try to avoid more Brexit-related defeats, [...]
Embed from Getty Images Sir Edward Garnier, who was Conservative MP for Harborough until he stood down at last year's election, is included in the list of new peers announced today. I suppose, following the pattern set by Tennyson, he will become Sir Edward Lord Garnier. The Guardian report says the peers have been appointed to "bolster her party's fragile position in the House of Lords". Yet Sir Edward Lord Garnier has always been an opponent of Brexit. The day before the referendum he said: The Conservative Party has built its reputation on economic stability that will be the foundation ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: Tonkee and Hoa lag behind with you. It's almost like the old days, except that now Hoa appears as you walk, gets left behind as you keep walking, then appears again somewhere ahead of you. Most times he adopts a neutral posture, but occasionally he's doing something ridiculous, like the time you find him in a running pose. Apparently stone eaters get bored, too. Hjarka stays with Tonkee, so that's four of you. Well, five: Lerna lingers to walk with you, too, angry at what he perceives as the mistreatment of one of his patients. ...
In a debate on cyber security this week, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP Jamie Stone talked of his shock at receiving a letter threatening him with a fine and points on his licence for a traffic accident in Greater Manchester. This is how it all unfolded. The Speaker started it off: Order. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) has just sent me a most gracious letter of apology in respect of a matter for which he has no reason whatsoever to apologise. I think we ought to hear the fella. Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland ...
As Mental Health Awareness Week draws to a close, Willie Rennie again used his questions to the First Minister to highlight the crisis in Scotland's mental health provision: Post-natal depression and depression during pregnancy affect up to one in five women. Half the women who experience it will go undetected and untreated. During an FMQs session in April, Willie Rennie highlighted the lack of perinatal mental health services and drew attention to the fact that new mothers in half of Scotland cannot access specialist services. Only Glasgow meets the required standard in the whole of Scotland. Scottish Liberal Democrats have ...
Fri 18th
12:10
Why do LGBT+LDs get so annoyed when people say the Lib Dems "acheived equal marriage" - a reminder
Lots of people high up in the campaigns department at LDHQ think it's great to say that "we achieved equal marriage". They think that because we campaigned for equal marriage, and the Same Sex Marriage Act passed, we should trumpet our achievement. They think that calling it Same Sex Marriage is bad "framing" and Equal Marriage sounds better. The problem is that although we did campaignget equal marriage. Here is a list of some of the things that remain unequal:Northern Ireland. There is no recognition of same sex marriage there at all. The Spousal Veto was a part of the ...
Radio 3 is winning the breakfast battle with Radio 4 - but the war is not won The Today prog has started haemorrhaging listeners. Good. I went sour on it when Nick Tory Boy Robinson joined, and finally switched to the World Service about 8 months ago. I've never looked back. I MIGHT try Today again when they finally put Humpty out to grass, but I doubt it. I really like Newsday now, and it's much broader focus. Keep missing alarms on your Android? This might be why (I use the alarm function on BBCiPlayer radio to wake me up ...
For this year's stress-themed Mental Health Awareness Week, I wanted to write about my experiences with mental health and campaigning and some of the lessons I've learned. Hopefully, some of it is useful for others in the party. To start off, I think it's fair to say that most Liberal Democrat activists are campaigning for love, not money. That description certainly applies to me. I'm one of those people who loves to get out and knock on doors, man the phones, and rush through last-minute print runs. Politics is exciting, and a great doorstop conversation is almost as sweet as ...
Thu, 12:08: RT @MouvEuropeen_Fr: Alors que s'ouvre le sommet UE - Balkans en Bulgarie, notre Président @ybertoncini analyse ce test géopolitique dans @... Thu, 12:56: Brexit: What Theresa May's White Paper must do https://t.co/I3tNqP71CE More common sense from @AndrewDuffEU. Thu, 16:05: RT @ameliagentleman: Still cannot understand why the Home Office decided it was necessary to send six enforcement officers at 5.30am to the... Thu, 20:48: RT @colifers: there are 3 girls on this bus discussing the scientific inconsistencies in Spongebob. y'all this is a series about a talking... Thu, 21:19: RT @DMiliband: Bananas used to be my specialist subject, Daniel. ...
This post first appeared on the Radix website... I'll tell you the answer straight away - they are all a result of too much money pushing up the prices. They are all a result of the most insane inflation. It is peculiar, though, that - in a nation where the establishment is obsessed with inflation - we understand it so little. Nearly the entire discourse about UK house prices has been about the short supply of houses and almost nothing about the over-supply of property finance. House prices tend to leap in periods of heavy lending, but not in periods ...
Yesterday was the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. In a Commons debate, Christine Jardine talked about the progress made over the last 40 years and the work still to do to rid us of discrimination against LGBT people. She particularly mentioned the prevalence of transphobia at the moment Here's her speech in full. This is an unusual situation because it is an important debate to have, and yet one that we probably all wish was not necessary. My right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who is no longer in her place, talked about many countries ...
As a party UKIP reached their existential crisis some time ago and continued to fall apart. However, there remains a small bridgehead in Wales, where their group of five AMs plus one currently sitting as an Independent must wait until 2021 for a reckoning. In the meantime they continue to exist in their own personal Idaho, rowing with each other, stomping out of the group in a huff and seeking to play out their petty divisions in personal attacks on each other. And so it came to pass this week that the formerly disgraced Tory MP, resurrected as a UKIP ...
The press is under attack. It is accused of disseminating fake news, invasion of privacy, distortions, half-truths and conspiracy theories. Journalists are demonised, denigrated, locked up and even murdered. The media has always faced such problems. Power brokers pay lip service to press freedom but are, at best, reluctant supporters. In rare rational moments they acknowledge its value. But they throw up barriers the moment the media spotlight shines on their unsavoury activities. The press has always managed to see off such opposition because the courts were behind it, and because its operations were based on sound commercial foundations. The ...
Well it was an open top bus tour and it was on a vintage Southport Corporation bus, but the tour was actually around St. Helens rather than Sunny Southport. A visit to an open day at the North West Museum of Road Transport (see previous posting) in St. Helens on 6th May brought about my open top bus tour. It was great that they had got out a vintage Southport Corporation bus to do honours, not least because the sun was cracking the flags in St. Helens just as it was in Sunny Southport that day. The colour scheme of ...
I'll tell you the answer straight away – they are all a result of too much money pushing up the prices. They are all a result of the most insane inflation. It is peculiar, though, that – in a nation where the establishment is obsessed with inflation – we understand it so little. Nearly the [...] The post What have footballers, vice-chancellors and London homes got in common? appeared first on Radix.
Responding to reports the National Police Chiefs' Council is considering routinely deploying armed officers in remote and rural communities, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said: "Police Officers carry out dangerous and often lifesaving work on our behalf, not least in the face of ongoing threats including terrorism. We must therefore ensure that armed officers are able to respond quickly to situations. "However, any move towards routinely arming officers would be totally disproportionate and contrary to the principle of policing by consent. "There needs to be sensible guidelines in place to ensure that armed officers on our streets do ...
Commenting on the Government announcement that they plan to accelerate fracking developments by fast-tracking private companies' planning applications, Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Spokesperson Lynne Featherstone said: "The planning process has clearly been doing its job and allowing people to fight fracking applications in their local area. "So it is desperately disappointing that the Government have announced today that they will be altering planning law to make it easier for the frackers. "Campaigners are quite rightly furious at this law change and it shows that Gove's attempts to paint himself as 'green' were just a façade."
From the Curator of Museum Services at the University of Dundee : Sunday 20th May, 3pmDesign Heritage WalkMeet outside Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (Matthew Building) Dundee is now a UNESCO City of Design but how much do you know about the history of design in the city? This informal guided tour by Matthew Jarron as part of Dundee Design Month will explore some design highlights in and around the city centre, past and present. We will find out about some of Dundee's most important design-related companies, discover the stories of exceptional designers and see some amazing ...
Drop-in sessions are being held at the first stage of the feasibility work being undertaken by Bury Council and the Forestry Commission relating to parkland sites to the west of Prestwich and Whitefield in the Irwell valley. The feasibility work will look at the legal, environmental and economic aspects of the land and how it could be managed for the future. Once this information is agreed, community roadshows will take place to allow people living and working in the area to see what is being proposed and have their say before any final decision is taken. (See this post for ...
Parklife and Heaton Park are distributing the information to residents near to Heaton Park from this week. If you do live near to the park then hopefully you will receive one through your door. If you don't, or you don't live nearby but are interested then there is one here. The main issue we have been working with Parklife and Heaton Park on over the last year is to address some of the parking and traffic issues to the northern end of the site around Bury Old Road north of the Tram Station and St Margaret's Road. Because of the ...
Just to congratulate our local football team on a successful season. Prestwich Heys won the LWC Drinks Cup, and finished an impressive third in their league. This meant going through to 'plays-offs' for promotion, but sadly missing out this year. Great to see one of our local teams doing so well – more information here. Let us know if you're involved in a local team that has a story to share. .
