Now a private house (and up for sale), this must once have been home to a business catering for sightseers at Trent Lock.
Brexiteers who look to Donald Trump for help will be disappointed. Dana Allin explains why. Oliver Stanton has some sensible ideas from improving the Liberal Democrats' online presence. "A shorter overall running time and a focus on producing even smaller bits of content risks robbing viewers of some of the current programme's interrogative depth. Save for the various Sunday shows British TV is not running over with dedicated political interview programming, and [Andrew] Neil is one of the best in the business." Henry Hill is rightly critical of the BBC's decision to scrap the Daily Politics and Sunday Politics. Neal ...
Getting hold of an up-to-date Liberal Democrat printed membership form can be surprisingly hard, so here's a pdf of the summer 2018 version of the form for anyone interested in joining the Liberal Democrats. Remember of course that people can join, renew and donate online and there's always the option to send some pennies the way of Liberal Democrat Newswire. Liberal Democrat membership form Liberal-Democrat-membership-form-July-2018
Evaluating the controversial voter ID pilots run during this May's local elections, the Electoral Commission has recommended more testing next year: Our evaluation involved collecting and analysing a wide range of data and information. Key findings include: 0.6% of people wanted to vote at their polling station but did not have the right identification; many of them came back with the right identification, but 0.2% did not. People in areas where the pilot schemes took place were significantly less likely to think that electoral fraud took place than those in other areas where elections were also held in May 2018. ...
It is a year today since I became party leader, and a great deal has happened since. Thanks to the efforts of so many of our members and campaigners, we had the best set of local election results of the three main parties in England in councils gained and the best overall for us in fifteen years. We have every reason to hope that next year will be better still - we are already preparing. The by-election in Lewisham East was our best against Labour for a decade. Local council contests each week continue to reinforce the positive message our ...
[IMG: I am holding an event on Malaysian politics on 22 July] In May 2018, the Malaysian electorate overwhelmingly voted the ruling party out and ushered in a new era of politics with the election of a coalition Government. The electorate rejected the cronyism and corruption of... The post I am holding an event on Malaysian politics on 22 July appeared first on FeministMama @ambitiousmamas.
In an interview with Business Insider to mark one year as Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable highlights how he wants the party to be at the centre of radical changes to the political landscape – and how he wants the party to change radically too. Vince Cable has long been one of the party's senior figures most in favour of dealings of some sort with liberals in other parties, including formal electoral arrangements with the Greens in his part of London. That is one part of a small but noticeable groundswell of local arrangements. But Cable's eyes are on Westminster ...
Fri 20th
12:55
LibLink: Wera Hobhouse: Solving the housing crisis means using the empty houses we've already got
Housing spokesperson Wera Hobhouse has written for the Huffington Post about how a Liberal Democrat amendment passed in the Lords this week will help alleviate the housing crisis. Politicians have a moral obligation to help solve this crisis, and one part of the process must be bringing empty properties back into use. Of course, we must build more homes – 300,000 per year to be precise – but bringing empty properties back into use is an excellent way in the short-term to help families in desperate need of a home, whilst saving valued green belt land from development. Equally, by ...
There have been no posts for the past few weeks as I've been on a boat trip up the Baltic, visiting, among other places, St Petersburg. The ship's daily synopsis of world news provided an outline of events, which could be supplemented by the BBC's World TV Service (not, to my mind a patch on the Radio service, and with a far too high percentage of identifiers and advertisements for itself.) The following comments are what occurred to me at the time. Since anything worth saying has probably already been said, I admit that this post is more for my ...
Fri 20th
12:28
Protest on Ludlow parking charge hike confirmed for 6pm Tuesday on Castle Square - please join us
Ludlow Chamber of Commerce has confirmed that there will be a public protest on Castle Square next Tuesday evening against Shropshire Council's plans to hike parking charges in Ludlow. Please come along and support the case for changes to parking charges that will damage our town centre. Shrewsbury has got concessions, so why shouldn't Ludlow get them? Details of the protest are here. The morning after the protest, I will be at Shropshire Council cabinet arguing for changes to the proposed regime. When Mayor Tim Gill and I met the portfolio holder for transport last Monday, we said we had ...
SIRC - Passport to the Pub Introduction A guide to pub-going for non-Brits. This is excellent, if very long. It does have SOME inaccuracies, but they are of the lies-to-children type rather than actual falsehoods. 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
The business world has its special expressions for what politicians call 'reform'. 'If you are standing still you are going backwards' for example. In Japan there is the business concept of 'kaizen', translated as 'continuous improvement'. The UK Liberal Democrats are a reformist party. People join the party because they wish to improve things and solve problems. By contrast some people join political parties to preserve the status quo, or a prior status quo. It's not so common in business. I sometimes wonder if the CEO of the communist East German state company that made the famous plastic 2-stroke Trabant ...
Thu, 12:56: RT @mattyglesias: It's weird that Donald Trump had a long private meeting with Vladimir Putin and suddenly emerged with a newfound interest... Thu, 16:05: RT @anthonyzach: Crude summary of summary: 9200 companies are not exporting today that would have been if the UK had voted Remain. 5200 did... Thu, 18:43: The 2018 John W. Campbell Award finalists https://t.co/JE7LUuFeCi Thu, 20:48: RT @MarkCarruthers7: Here's the House of Commons Standards Committee's report into Ian Paisley's Sri Lanka visits in full: https://t.co/NBl... Thu, 22:30: RT @gavinesler: Hahaha I've been in Italy Germany France Spain recently and "terrified the U.K. will prosper" ...
I am delighted to announce the venues for Federal Conference in 2019. For the Spring, we will be returning to the York Barbican. It is a venue that enjoys consistently positive member feedback, located, as it is, in a magnificent city. The conference hotel will be the Novotel York Centre Hotel. The dates for conference will be 16th to 17th March 2019. Autumn Conference 2019 will be held in the Bournemouth International Centre. As with York, it is a venue well known to us and we are really pleased to be returning to what is a great seaside location. The ...
News from Geoff Payne, the new chair of Federal Conference Committee (FCC), of the dates for Liberal Democrat federal conferences in 2019: I am delighted to announce the venues for Federal Conference in 2019. For the Spring, we will be returning to the York Barbican. It is a venue that enjoys consistently positive member feedback, located, as it is, in a magnificent city. The conference hotel will be the Novotel York Centre Hotel. The dates for conference will be 16th to 17th March 2019. Autumn Conference 2019 will be held in the Bournemouth International Centre. As with York, it is ...
Culture is at the root of how we think and behave, the assumptions we make and how we see the World. In short, culture is 'for better or for worse, this how things work around here'. Importantly, culture trumps strategy. Most change initiatives fail because culture isn't addressed. Culture also lags behind reality, sometimes facilitating [...] The post Letter from America: how Americans think appeared first on Radix.
Yesterday Sheila and I attended the funeral of a near neighbour, Millicent Holme. We only met Millicent (known to everyone as Millie) 7 years ago when we moved to Lydiate but it soon became apparent that she was steeped in the history of our new community. Indeed, she lived in Lydiate all her life. She died aged 94 but her sister Mable, who lived with Millie, had lived to ripe old age of 104 and we attended her funeral almost exactly a year ago. To hear Millie talk about Lydiate as a rural community when the southern part of the ...
Oxford Liberal Democrats pulled off a brilliant hold last night, getting over 60% of the vote. Oxford City Council, Headington ward results LD @SGarden13 949 Con 124 Grn 67 Lab 419 pic.twitter.com/fAk1AIjJpX — ALDC (@ALDC) July 19, 2018 There are still results to come from Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
The House of Commons whipping system is an esoteric subject at the best of times. It is hardly the subject of debate and controversy in living rooms up and down the country, and yet the pairing of MPs during crucial votes is essential to the successful running of the Government. That is because pairing is not just used to cover for sick and pregnant MPs or because of travel problems, it also allows Ministers to get on with their jobs knowing that their absence during a division will not threaten the government's majority. In the circumstances then, the decision of ...
