GingerBeardMark and the musician Eric Loveland Heath are our guides for a tour of the remains of Snailbeach lead mine in Shropshire. In its day - the second half of the 19th century - this was the most productive lead mine in the country. The work of Eric Loveland Heath, who grew up in Snailbeach and has been inspired by its strange landscape, has featured on this blog before/
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 526th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere ... Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (22-28 July, 2018), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed. Don't forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging. As ever, let's start with the most popular post, and work our way down: 1. Rare Lib Dem Council by-election loss to ...
Caron Lindsay was at the Social Liberal Forum conference yesterday, where big ideas abounded. "It has been de rigueur in certain middle class circles to complain about the baleful effect of political parties in government, but nobody appears to be complaining now they have all but disappeared in the chaos hat now seems to be overtaking what used to be known as the UK government." David Boyle is as penetrating as ever. "Leave-supporting areas can be easily distinguished from those supporting Remain. Broadly speaking, they are more deprived, have lower levels of income, fewer high status-jobs, a weaker economic structure, ...
It looks as though Mark Littlewood will be in the news this week thanks to this Guardian story: The director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was secretly recorded telling an undercover reporter that funders could get to know ministers on first-name terms and that his organisation was in "the Brexit influencing game".Mark Littlewood claimed the IEA could make introductions to ministers and said the thinktank's trade expert knew Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davis and Liam Fox well. The IEA chief was also recorded suggesting potential US donors could fund and shape "substantial content" of research commissioned by ...
Yesterday was a fantastic day out at SLF Conference. This annual get-together is always thought-provoking food for the social liberal soul. At this point I should say a massive thank you to the organisers for a great day – and particularly to our own Mary Reid who does so much to make the event a success every year. Layla Moran followed in the footsteps of the likes of Nick Clegg, Tim Farron and Vince Cable in delivering the Beveridge Memorial Lecture. She's been in the papers a lot this week with talk of un-named people supposedly trying to support the ...
A couple of minor amendments to the rules that I'd like to put to this year's WSFS business meeting, but I need at least one co-sponsor. I won't be there myself, but I think that these are technical and uncontroversial, and encode existing best practice in order to remove ambiguity. Please let me know, in comments here or by other channels, if you are a Worldcon 76 member willing to add your name to the list of sponsors. The deadline is 2 August. I had originally drafted the first of these to include clear guidance that votes with a blank ...
Apologies for such a long gap, spent getting my head around the privacy business of GDPR. This post first appeared on the Radix website... It has been de rigueur in certain middle class circles to complain about the baleful effect of political parties in government, but nobody appears to be complaining now they have all but disappeared in the chaos that now seems to be overtaking what used to be known as the UK government. The collapse of ideological demarcations is most obvious in the Conservative Party, because current divisions go to the heart of the great split that runs ...
ALDC is currently recruiting for their 2018 Future Leaders programme, which will take place at Autumn Kickstart in November (itself an excellent weekend and highly recommended for anyone with local elections next year). The training and development programme is for Liberal Democrat activists and councillors who are hopefully going to be the party's stars of the future. Crucially, as you might be able to guess from ALDC's involvement, this isn't just about Westminster and being an MP. It's broader than that, encompassing the importance of local government and hence leadership at the local government level. It's a free weekend training ...
There was a hashtag popular on Twitter earlier this week (#songsofsummer1976) that people used to boast about having been at famous early punk gigs. To those of us outside London and reliant upon Radio One for our music, 1976 was very different. It was a year of disco and novelty hits. The song that reminds me of taking my O levels early that summer is If You Leave Me Now by Chicago. I had thought of choosing that today, but listening to it now it is pretty awful. Silly voice, silly hair. So let's embrace the novelty hit vibe with ...
Its a truth universally acknowledged that.......there are no 'ups' with out 'downs', and we Welsh Lib Dems know more than others what 'down' feels like. Its crap, to put it bluntly. 'Down' is deep and its hard to dust your self off and start climbing up again. So, its good to report that many of us Welsh Lib Dems are on cloud nine after an exhilarating 4 days at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells. If you've never visited the Royal Welsh before, it's the largest agricultural show in Europe, with a foot fall of about a quarter of ...
Sun, 10:45: RT @EULondonMark: Worth repeating (daily?) that in Brexit negotiations @MichelBarnier is acting in line with a clear mandate from EU27 lead... Sun, 11:39: At #LFCC, got my picture taken with #MattSmith already; am now hovering between the #PeterCapaldi and... https://t.co/ZrCkp7FwZ4
Is the Nation-State Act, approved by the Israeli parliament last week, really as bad as its critics suggest? Jonathan Freedland, Guardian journalist and occasional writer in the Jewish Chronicle, clearly thinks so. Neither he nor the Chronicle have been willing to criticise Israel very much in the past, but this has been changing in recent weeks. His article of 27 July lays it out clearly: "It... (the Act)...says that the right to self-determination in Israel is a right that applies to Jews only and that Hebrew is the state's only official language, with Arabic now granted merely a "special status". ...
If we all want to dance into and through our third age we as individuals; as members of a community and as citizens need to plan for the third age and face up to the realities of it On Friday ... Continue reading →
After outlining Government inaction on key Brexit issues yesterday, more than a year after these problems were highlighted, it is no comfort to read in the Independent yet more consequences of a hard Brexit, this time for those suffering from diabetes. The paper quotes the chair of the UK medicines regulator as warning that millions of diabetes patients, including Theresa May herself, could be "seriously disadvantaged" if supplies of insulin are affected by a no-deal Brexit. Sir Michael Rawlins, who chairs the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said the UK imports "every drop" of insulin, a vital medication ...
Here's an interesting piece of news (see link below) from the Isle of Thanet News about the last surviving Merseyrail Class 503 EMU, which has now pitched up in Margate for storage in the former Hornby factory. The article also gives an informative potted history about the Class 503 EMU's. My apologies as I do not know to whom the credit for the photo at the head of this posting is due. It was clearly taken at the former Electric Railway Museum in Coventry though, from which the 503 departed following its recent closure.
I've always had a pretty simple approach to the families of candidates when it comes to campaigning. Remember to thank them for the burden the candidature of their loved one puts on them, and keep them out of political communications. The latter is always my strong preference. If you choose to use your family in some way as a prop to get elected then how can you reasonably turn around and demand the media and the public leave them alone to their privacy subsequently? Saying that the behaviour of a teenager at school is none of the media's business is ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 30 JULY 2018 Riverside Drive (at Riverside Approach) - temporary traffic lights from Monday 30 July for 5 weeks for gas main renewal. Riverside Approach closed southbound and prohibition of right turn from Barnetts Garage will be in force for periods of the 5 weeks.
