Seven council by-elections this week, one of which is a Liberal Democrat defence but even with that there are only four Lib Dem candidates. Gurnos, Merthyr Tydfil No Liberal Democrat candidate, continuing a pattern in this ward stretching all the way back to its creation in the early 1980s. I wonder how far up the tables that makes it in the list of longest runs without a Lib Dem / Alliance / Liberal Party candidate? Fawley, Blackfield and Langley, New Forest Craig Fletcher was the Liberal Democrat candidate in a ward the party won in 2003 but lost in the ...
Last week it was March to Spalding. This week it is St Ives to Huntingdon. You can watch archive footage of the line from Cambridge to St Ives via another post on this blog.
Although I've written mainly in recent weeks about the benefits of a registered supporters scheme (run with the right principles), growing party membership is important too. A key part of the turnaround in Liberal Democrat party membership levels, which predated the 2015 and 2016 surges, was a new incentive scheme that provided a direct and significant financial incentive to local parties to ensure their membership went up. The problem more recently, however, has been that instead of being an incentive for local membership recruitment and retention activity it has become a payment to local parties rather divorced from their actual ...
Never mind my puzzlement over the rapid change in Darren Grimes's politics: there is a more fundamental question about him. Just how old is the guy? The screen capture above comes from a post made today on the page where he raised money to fund an appeal again the Electoral Commission finding that he had broken the law. The tweet below was sent by him earlier this week. h/t James Chalmers Guys, I'm 25 now*. RIP me. *I accidentally did wear the same tee as my birthday cake https://t.co/fjVDlPHlge pic.twitter.com/kBVuq6ogFA— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) July 21, 2018
Remember those "senior Liberal Democrats" who want to Vince Cable as leader? According to Total Politics, which is unable to add any detail to that original story, they are meeting this evening. I like Layla Moran and can see her being party leader one day, but I am not convinced that a change of leader is the answer to our current lack of progress. Maybe everyone should just go on holiday?
Second paragraph of third chapter: He could see nothing, one hand over his eyes to protect them from the razor-sharp jaws of the beetles, and he hit the far wall with an impact that jarred from his elbows to his backbone. His fingers scrabbled, desperately searching for a door that wasn't there. Splinters of wood lodged painfully beneath his nails and he realised with a sick shock that he was making exactly the same sound the beetles had made inside the crate. Mindless creatures fighting to escape. A delightful romp of zombies taking over Rome and bringing about the end ...
Since its launch in 2013, the Membership Incentive Scheme has helped our party not just grow, but thrive. The money from it has helped local parties grow their membership, fight campaigns and demand better for their communities. In recent years, we've seen a worrying trend developing though. More and more local parties stopped actively recruiting new members. This is concerning - because part of the original intent of the scheme was to help build strong, local teams that would win elections. At the request of the relevant State Party Committees, we have therefore been exploring options to revise the current ...
Back when I used to work in IT in the public sector, in one job I used to come up with increasingly absurd names for projects to get a kick out of seeing how quickly the absurd name became normalised, with serious, sensible, senior people happily saying what were absurd words in meetings because they had become familiar words. The BBC's Shipping Forecast is rather like that: a bizarre cross between a mysterious code and a succession of cryptic crossword clues to the uninitiated, a reassuring way of ending the day to the familiar (and a life-saver to those few ...
Thu 26th
11:55
No Deal would be horrendous - but let's not forget that any other type of Brexit is bad news and we ...
So, let me get this right. Our own Prime Minister has admitted that we are now stockpiling food and medicines just in case Brexit goes disastrously wrong. Our ability to supply ourselves with the basics of life is now under threat because of her Government's reckless appeasement of the extreme right of her party. And this really matters. It's actually about whether people live or die. As my friend Jenny points out: Hi @theresa_may. I don't think I need to tell you what happens to a diabetic without insulin. Will my pharmacy have any in April 2019? Or do I ...
Last week The Economist published a short article about the failure of Britain's reform of child maintenance collection. The article highlights the human consequences but does to point to any wider lessons. And yet our political class needs to see what was wrong-headed about the idea, or else we are destined to keep repeating the ... Continue reading Child Maintenance: an epic failure that should be a lesson to government
Wed, 16:18: RT @KeohaneDan: Fun fact, in May 2018 Ireland exported more goods (in value) to Belgium (€1.363bn) than to the UK (€1.182bn). Irish exports... Wed, 18:24: The Doctor Who Quiz Book of Dinosaurs, by Michael Holt https://t.co/2RV8W9L8dJ Wed, 21:10: RT @BrigidLaffan: Why is it so hard #Brexiteers find it so hard to accept that Irish influence on Brexit negs is strong for 2 reasons. 1. I... Thu, 07:25: RT @LouisMoresi: A new study on carbonate / subduction that shows the correlation between reefs colliding with trenches (and their volcani... Thu, 08:00: RT @PoliticoRyan: Selmayr strategy. Malmstrom backbone. Juncker charm. ...
Lighting Up Sunniside, a group I helped set up to raise the funds for a Christmas tree in the village, held its first community fayre recently in the Whinnies Community Garden. Alas, I had a group meeting in the morning but I was able to make it to the fayre for the opening at 1pm. The event raised a third of the money we need to pay for the tree. Other events will be held soon.
It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at yesterday's outburst by the obscure and little-known Tory MEP, David Bannerman, who suggested that Britain's Treason Act should be updated to apply to citizens who are "working undemocratically against UK through extreme EU loyalty". A former Conservative Councillor in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Bannerman was originally elected to the European Parliament as a member of UKIP but rejoined the Conservatives in 2011. He is a distant relative of former Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman who led the Liberal Party to a landslide victory over the Conservatives in the 1906 General Election. ...
Following our recent visit to Whickham School with our goats, we got a call from Hill Top School in Gateshead asking if we would take them there as well. So on Monday last week, we made a journey across the borough with 2 goats in the back of the land rover. The event was a success. Since then, I've had a further request to take the goats to a community centre later this year!
More than 1,140 people entered the Ashdown Prize, organised earlier this year by Your Liberal Britain. Only ten of these ideas could make it onto the shortlist – but there were so many brilliant entries that we decided we had to celebrate and promote more of them. The following are a list of Commended Entries. They are the personal picks of our shortlisters: ideas that didn't make it to the final ten, but that are worthy of special praise. Here they are, arranged alphabetically by author: · Mental health assessment before military demobilisation - Adrian Grant · National post-secondary learning ...
In common with other political parties, the Liberal Democrats have more than one 'Treasurer'. Many of you will know Mike German as the 'Party Treasurer' responsible for fundraising and Dinesh Dhamija who is Mike's deputy. Both Mike and Dinesh are responsible for getting 'money in' to the Party and you will have seen them at Federal Conference and at other fundraising events. Behind the scenes sits the Chair of the Federal Finance and Resources Committee (FFRC) who is responsible for 'money out' and, as far as the law and the Electoral Commission is concerned, is the 'Registered' Treasurer (RT) of ...
The romantic mossy stones of Ruskin's Venice and Charles Aznavour's city transform to sadness when love vanishes. The contemporary Venice of old groceries stores and craftsmen's workrooms have become junk goods bazaars, Pizza Huts, unfitting Irish pubs, masque and knock-off shops for the flood of millions distracted tourists. Dwellings, once inhabited by families full of [...] The post How to save Venice as a living, breathing city appeared first on Radix.
Commenting on a white paper into foreign takeovers, Liberal Democrat Leader and former Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The Government is rightly concerned about the security impact of overseas takeovers. But they should be focusing on the damaging takeovers made by big US data companies that harm Britain's long-term capabilities in AI and related fields. "The European Commission is demonstrating serious awareness of this problem and is taking action. It is not at all clear how the Conservatives would deal with these big tech companies in the event of their chaotic plans for Brexit going through. "We believe that the ...
