There was a good documentary on BBC Radio 4 last night in which Lynsey Hanley looked at the decline of bus services outside London. As the blurb for it on the BBC website says: For more than 30 years buses in the UK have run under two systems. In London, a powerful transport authority commissions and pays for bus routes it deems necessary. Outside the capital it is up to the bus companies which routes they run and to local authorities which gaps to fill, if they are able. In the first of two episodes on Britain's transport divide, public ...
At the weekend, Austria assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union. That is quite a challenge at the best of times, but at present it is something of a poisoned chalice. The second half of 2018 is make-or-break time for the Brexit "negotiations"; even if diehard Remainers like myself now hope for "break", [...]
Yesterday, some party members received an email from the Party's Chief Executive, Nick Harvey, which told them that there had been a data breach at a company used by the party in connection with a recent members' survey. Here's Nick's statement on the issue: One of our suppliers, Typeform, informed us that on 3rd May 2018 they suffered a data breach, which they subsequently discovered on 27th June and notified us shortly afterwards. Data from Liberal Democrat members was among the data affected. You will have received an email if your data was affected. Typeform have informed us that an ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry in both a physical and ideological sense. When the pigs saw the wolf, they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and banged on the door, shouting, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!" Like a lot of people, I am dismayed that "political correctness" seems to have become a way of demonising the old-fashioned concept of civility. This book therefore could have been ...
First posted on LibDemVoice. I find the word "radical" increasingly difficult nowadays. It has become a shibboleth. Whatever is being pitched has to be framed as radical. And everybody knows exactly what it means and says so with great authority. The trouble is that the next person will, with equally great authority, give it a different meaning. And also, it doesn't tell us anything about the liberalness of the policies being proposed. I think most people will agree that Iain Duncan Smith's approach to welfare benefits was radical. But I don't think any liberal wants a policy that vindictive. (Or ...
I find the word "radical" increasingly difficult nowadays. It has become a shibboleth. Whatever is being pitched has to be framed as radical. And everybody knows exactly what it means and says so with great authority. The trouble is that the next person will, with equally great authority, give it a different meaning. And also, it doesn't tell us anything about the liberalness of the policies being proposed. I think most people will agree that Iain Duncan Smith's approach to welfare benefits was radical. But I don't think any liberal wants a policy that vindictive. (Or that incompetent.) When you ...
No matches tomorrow, so no poll today, just congratulations to an unprecedented ten people who got both of yesterday's results right: po8crg, hano, trepkos, busarewski, arwel_p, johnny9fingers, redfiona99, vilakins, huskyteer and me. And crumbs, the Belgium match was just a bit more exciting in the second half than the first, wasn't it???
Open relationships just as satisfying as monogamous ones -- ScienceDaily Cabin Pressure: The sitcom that broke records This is an extended advert for the fact that the final episode of Cabin Pressure will feature on BBC Radio 4 Extra's Comedy Club on Sunday 15 July at 23:00. If you've not heard it, you should. The lemon is in play. Time for full equality in our marriage and partnership laws | Stephen Williams' Blog How to win with the new politics (are you listening, Lib Dems?) - Radix Some really good points in here, which I suspect HQ will be conveniently ...
I posted a while back about the hedge which fronts Southport Road as it was overgrowing the pavement. My previous posting refers – see link below:- The hedge has now been thinned out by One Vision Housing's contractor and all is well. Thanks One Vision for getting the work done.
Mon, 12:56: The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, same-sex relationships and church membership: six problems (Long Read)... https://t.co/Jf7zq8uuId Mon, 13:25: World Cup, Second Round, Day Four https://t.co/PAI8HNUc08 Mon, 16:05: Full text of the 'Get tough on Brussels' letter sent to Theresa May by more than 30 Tory MPs... https://t.co/AVFsPoUCIv Mon, 16:24: RT @GuitarMoog: AIG insurance informing an Irish client that their entire European insurance business is being transferred from London to L... Mon, 16:24: RT @GuitarMoog: And AIG helpfully give the reason for this move. Brexit. https://t.co/ac98ctPbln Mon, 18:00: On 3 February I gave a lecture about Brexit in Istanbul. Today, ...
The term "evidence based" is often used in statements in health care or science policy that are intended to indicate respect for a scientific approach. Indeed evidence is essential for testing scientific theories and specific statements but science provides something much more powerful and that is an explanatory theory. Theories arise in science through a critical process that incorporates much debate and draws on past theories, philosophy (if only implicitly) and, of course, evidence. Having passed several tests and often having gone through several formulations a theory will be accepted quite generally as the best current explanation of the facts ...
With a crunch Cabinet meeting at Chequers on Friday on Brexit – another "make or break" meeting at Chequers, which as ever is being billed as something from which a fudge cannot emerge – talk switches to what will happen if the ERG group do not get their way. I don't really even know what getting their way would like in pragmatic terms, but at this stage that is hardly the point. The question is, if they don't feel like they are getting their way, will they order a vote of no confidence in Theresa May? Just like there is ...
Belgian card-indexes don't feature very much in the history of the internet or lists of amazing human achievements. But (as I've belatedly discovered) they should.
We are all aware of the issues surrounding property in the UK. According to the Resolution Foundation, as many as one third of millennials will be renting from cradle to grave. This is a serious problem that no party has ever really got to grips with. When Labour were in Government, house building was one of the fewer policy areas that didn't get much attention. All of the attention was on reforming public services, especially post-2001, rather than on housing. Under the Conservative's we have seen the introduction of initiatives aimed at helping people get onto the housing ladder. These ...
Those were the words spoken to me by a uniformed immigration control office at Las Vegas airport as I was refused entry to USA last November. No point in arguing, it would only get worse. After lengthy questioning and I have paid for the earliest flight back to London the next day, all luggage and personal items [...] The post "You have no rights. This is not your country." appeared first on Radix.
Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Lloyd has today slammed the Tory Government for failing to meet their deadline to ban cold calling by companies selling pension products. During debates on the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill, Treasury Minister John Glen committed to "ban pensions cold calling quickly" and promised to make a statement to Parliament if he failed to do so by the end of June. That deadline has now passed and Stephen Lloyd is demanding that a minister appears before the House of Commons to explain the reasons for the delay. The Government commitment to ban pensions cold calling was ...
Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Christine Jardine MP has reiterated calls, ahead of President Trump's visit to the UK next Friday, for a full public inquiry into what British Intelligence agencies knew about US kidnap and torture of suspected terrorists after 9/11. Speaking yesterday in the House of Commons, Ms Jardine urged the Government to "ensure a judge-led inquiry takes place, in order to show that the UK stands firmly opposed to this violation of human rights." Sir Alan Duncan MP, Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, confirmed the Government would "maintain its integrity" on human rights. The ...
Crossens Saturday, 14 July, St John's Primary School, Rufford Road, Crossens, from 11am to 12 noon. Churchtown Thursday, 26th July, BoxTree Kitchen for Queenscourt cafe, Manor Road/Cambridge Road, roundabout, from 10:30am to 11:30am. We will be there to meet you and discuss any Council problems you may have. No appointment necessary. Just pop in.
Helen Flynn, chair of the Social Liberal Forum, looks forward to its annual conference in London on 28 July. The Social Liberal Forum's (SLF's) eighth annual conference is a meeting place for all liberals to talk about big ideas, following on from the successful publication of the SLF's new book, published in March this year, Four Go In Search Of Big Ideas. The SLF Council took the decision to publish the book because: the Liberal Democrats appear to have fallen into "managerial mode" since the Coalition, and there is a space for Liberals to talk about new ideas that is ...
"I've been driving this route for eight months," said the bus driver, "and you're only the second person to have got off there." Hanging Houghton is a great name for a hamlet. It stands just off the Market Harborough to Northampton road between Lamport and Brixworth, above the Brampton Valley. I once suggested Brixworth's men in black had been dealing with the downing of a flying saucer here. When you get there you find a surprising amount of housing - old and recent. But that is all you find. The tableau above - a pillar box, a telephone box that ...
