Sat 14th
23:04

Found art in Cromford

I like the random arrangements of objects you find in junk shops and antique shops. Cromford has such establishments, both at Arkwright's Mill and in the village centre.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Embed from Getty Images The immediate postwar years saw a host of murderers who entered the nation's collective memory. There was John George Haigh, the acid bath murderer. There was the charming Neville Heath. There was Reginald Christie of 10 Rillington Place. Perhaps it is because it also comes from those years that the case of Thomas Ley, the chalk pit murderer, is not better known. Ley was born in Bath in 1880. His father died two years later and in 1886 his mother emigrated to Australia with her four children. Living in Sydney, Ley qualified as a solicitor and ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The latest quarterly update to my PollBase, my database of British voting intention opinion polls since 1943 is now up. The big picture is one of continuing stability in the polls, but with Labour on a sustained downward drift.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

YouGov's latest set of leadership ratings contains cautiously promising news from the Liberal Democrats: Vince Cable has the best (least worst) ratings of the three main UK party leaders. Do you have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of the following...? Vince Cable: net score -20 (favourable: 23%, unfavourable 43%, up from -22% in early May) Jeremy Corbyn: net score -30 (favourable: 28%, unfavourable 58%, down from -26% in early May) Theresa May: net score -37 (favourable: 25%, unfavourable 62%, down from -21% in early May) As ever, apply caution to one poll, especially as the 23% favourable matches rather than ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Sat 14th
14:01

Going My Way (1944)

Going My Way was the highest earning film of 1944 in the American market; it won Best Motion Picture (the first tme that title was used for the award) and got another nine nominations and six awards, Barry Fitzgerald losing to Bing Crosby for Best Actor but winning Best Supporting Actor, Leo McCarey winning for Best Director and Best Original Motion Picture Story, Frank Butler and Frank Cavett winning for Best Writing, Screenplay and "Swinging on a Star" by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke winning Best Song. The other Best Motion Picture nominees were Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Since You ...

Good point, bad example: that's my view of Nick Tyrone's (typically provocatively titled*) post, "My take on why I think the Lib Dems lose people like Darren Grimes to the Eurosceptic Right". His general point I agree with – the party needs to find good ways to involve people in a range of tasks: Every party needs leaflet droppers, and one of the Lib Dems continued strengths has been how many committed activists it has on the ground. However, it is far from enough to make a party really work. You need people who are backroom strategy types; you need ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Sat 14th
13:26

the mimic

I was unsure – of who I was, of how to live outside my home and lacking adequate affect, while full of social awkwardness – so I conformed. The choice was stark but simpler than it seems in that long ago. Thus marked, by birth or accident, I took instruction, even study (to a point), [...]

Posted by AL Franklin on Maintain the Advance!

View Poll: Who will win the 2018 World Cup?

Sat 14th
11:00

My tweets

Fri, 12:56: Apart from the swearing this is a great thread. https://t.co/U6EGUBOiGm Fri, 14:44: Who will win the third place play-off? https://t.co/KOOwfpEQc1 Fri, 16:05: Crumbs. https://t.co/zywuhRV9PT Fri, 18:40: Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, by Abel Lanzac and Christophe Blain https://t.co/Mvo0VfuSJD Fri, 20:48: A more positive take. https://t.co/WELoqAe9jI Sat, 11:43: Things I never knew: Graham Greene's mother was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson.

It was another extraordinary day in UK politics yesterday, with tens of thousands of people protesting against Donald Trump, whilst the US President himself continued his habit of reinventing the truth as he progressed from event to event. Two incidents in particular stick out. Firstly, as the Guardian reports, Trump abruptly disavowed the criticism of Theresa May he had earlier made to the Sun newspaper, delivering an extraordinary press conference performance alongside the prime minister in which he pledged new support for a post-Brexit trade deal and attacked the British tabloid over "fake news". The Sun of course has the ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
YouGov

I asked on Twitter this morning what the worst thing about Donald Trump was. Many of the replies I got were variations on the theme of "everything." It is rare that you find a human being with so little empathy for others and so few saving graces. When that person has so much global power and influence, it's utterly terrifying. It's not just about his racism which leads him to ban people of a certain religion and decry Mexicans as rapists and slag off the most prominent Muslim politician in the UK. It's not just about the ingrained misogyny which ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

 

Just a reminder that there are no scheduled meetings at Blyth Town Council until September ...

Posted by Alisdair Gibbs-Barton on Alisdair Gibbs-Barton