Gumley lies eleven miles south-east of Leicester at the eastern end of a ridge of hills which runs from Husbands Bosworth through Mowsley and Laughton, north of the Welland valley.So says the Victoria County History of Leicestershire. That hill is impressive in itself, but there is all sorts of history up there too. There are the remains of a motte castle (though its precise age and purpose are debated), somewhere here too a synod took place in 749, called by King Aethelbald of Mercia. And round about 1800 the village was reshaped to please the owners of the now-demolished Gumley ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

News from North Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats of a new recruit to the Liberal Democrats: Councillor Paul Marment, formerly of the Conservatives. Regular readers will know about my strictures over cherry picking good news when it comes to local council by-elections: pick the set of contests you are going to report on and then report all the results from those contests. Otherwise if you, say, don't report on all parish council contests but only report select ones then you can easily end up with a very skewed picture. If you follow Lib Dem Voice's coverage for example, you will read there ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Today saw the departure of one of Kingston's 39 Lib Dem councillors. More here - but it doesn't make good reading for the current leadership who are political pygmies in comparison with earlier Lib Dem leaders of the Royal Borough. I moved to Kingston in the 1990s when the party was a bastion of liberal and radical thought. I was mentored by people like John Tilley and Roger Hayes - campaigners who understood and developed community politics and made it relevant to the well heeled, middle class streets of Kingston, Richmond and Surbiton. People like John and Roger and the ...

Posted by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone

A chicken yesterday The Eastern Daily Press wins our Headline of the Day Award. I have been asked to point out that the judges also enjoyed the complaint from a resident that "the chickens are always crossing the road".

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

There were three local by-elections last night and in one them the Liberal Democrats gained the seat from the Conservatives. So a good night for us then? . Each Thursday Andrew Teale published wonderfully detailed previews of that week's by-elections. So let's have a look at last night's results in the light of his preview. There was a by-election in the Gwynfi ward of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, but the Liberal Democrats did not field a candidate. Andrew Teale gives the results for the ward going back to 1983 and there has never been a Lib Dem (or ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The full results of the 1943 Retro Hugos have been released. As usual, below I am reporting the margin of victory for the winner, and the other placings, giving margins of victory where they were less than 20 votes. For the nominations stage, I am reporting the top vote-getters and the nearest misses. Highlights: the closest result of the Retro Hugos was Best Fanzine, where Le Zombie won by only ten votes, and The Phantagraph won second place by only nine votes. The only closer races were Arthur Wilson "Bob" Tucker winning second place in Best Fan Writer by three ...

Fri 17th
16:25

5 (tanka)

Rather than persuade and impose my pride on you, I would leave, losing the humility that might submit to your persuasion Advertisements

Posted by AL Franklin on Maintain the Advance!

Second paragraph of Part Three: Players and the referee should read this chapter carefully, or have it explained to them by someone who knows the rules. Rules in subsequent chapters can be skimmed by players to glean some knowledge of the game's workings; the referee needs to set aside time to read the rules at least once. My role-playing game days are very far behind me now, but in my late teens I was pretty absorbed in the linked fandoms of postal diplomacy and RPG design. One of the major figures of the latter was Ian Marsh, co-editor of the ...

Fri 17th
14:00

Better think

 

Posted by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone

The immigration motion (F16) and policy paper coming to Conference has already rightly drawn the ire of Lib Dem Voice commentators. It's weak, indistinct, and includes some seriously objectionable language and ideas. I and the Radical Association, of which I'm proud to be the current chair, will be opposing F16 at conference and demanding a full rethink of this poorly produced and inadequate policy paper. We're at a point in rebuilding our party from some bad electoral losses where it's crucial that we build a clear, separate identity as voices to empower the voiceless, and being proudly pro-immigration is a ...

Posted by Luke Graham on Liberal Democrat Voice
YouGov

Too many children look like this because they eat too many of this type of product and drink too much sugary drinks. Burgers and chips need to be treats and not part of a staple diet The number of children ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

Cancer is traumatising. It is universal, leaving no family untouched. I saw this first-hand. Cancer took my first wife, Olympia, in 2001. To repeat what I wrote in my memoirs, that experience showed me that whatever may be said in criticism of the NHS, the capacity of the system to deliver high quality, sophisticated treatment to the acutely sick is so greatly appreciated by those who receive it. Living with and caring for a cancer sufferer for 14 years led me to want to help others and to use my political position to do so. I campaigned subsequently for wider ...

Posted by Vince Cable on Liberal Democrat Voice
Fri 17th
11:00

My tweets

Thu, 19:33: Huwawei Stories: Pioneers, ed. Tian Tao and Yin Zhifeng https://t.co/KQYTwgEhcQ Thu, 20:48: Swings and Roundabouts https://t.co/AIiaIJKFjZ @belledejour_uk on her friend Laura Lee and the demands of truth. Thu, 22:17: RT @will_i_am_s_: Ok timeline, who wants to hear my favourite bad joke. Astronaut 1: Hi mate, I can't find any milk for my coffee. Astrona... Thu, 22:43: RT @kevincoyuk: @DWP Universal credit pays what they *think* you can live on for a month, but then deduct CSA payments, back taxes and othe... Fri, 05:43: RT @PEMatson: 1943 #RetroHugos award at #WorldCon76 for Best Fan Writer is Forrest J. Ackerman. ...

So we have our new strapline. Demand Better. I like it. It's active and aspirational. It tells us that we are not stuck with this crap. We can have a fairer, happier, more equal country and we all have a part to play in making it happen. Optimistic, from-the-heart vision and ambition is long overdue in politics. Clinton and Obama won with strong messages of positivity and hope. We will overcome the negative, divisive, anti-democratic rhetoric from the extremes and solve problems in an inclusive way. It's versatile – Demand better for health, for Scotland, for Petersfield, where our excellent ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Labour received another blow yesterday when one of its most high-profile supporters announced that he could no longer support or vote for them because of their stance on Brexit. As the Mirror reports, Sir Patrick Stewart, who has starred in Star Trek and the X-men franchise as well as many more classical roles, says he probably won't vote Labour again because of the direction Jeremy Corbyn has taken the party. Professor Xavier (as I now think of him) has been a Labour supporter since 1945 when he was 5 years old. Sir Patrick's thinking on this reflects that of many ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

How do you defeat an idea, especially an idea wrapped in the cloak of religious infallibility? Now add the complications of long-held justifiable grievances against Western society; unbalanced personalities and a communications network which can transmit hate messages to anyone, anytime, anywhere. This is the problem The West is facing in its battle against Islamic Jihadists. Following this week's incident outside the British parliament it was revealed that British intelligence agencies had 10,000 "persons of interest" that they were monitoring in the UK. In the past year they had stopped 13 terrorist attacks from Islamic terrorists and 4 from far ...

Posted by Tom Arms on Liberal Democrat Voice

I blogged about the rather strange lack of a pavement on a part of Coppull Road in Lydiate not so long back. It's opposite the junction with Barnes Drive and its been like this ever since the estate was built. My concern is pedestrian safety and you can access my original blog posting via this link:- The response from Sefton Council's Highways Dept. was that due to financial cut-backs they no long have a budget to undertake such remedial works to address this short section of missing pavement. An unsurprising response which is very much of our austerity times ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Last week I had a site visit with some Logie area residents about a number of local issues. One of these was the damaged state of the roadway at the junction of Lime Street/Glenagnes Street - see below : I raised this with the council's Roads Maintenance Partnership and have now received the following positive response : "The inspection has been out to visit the location and has raised CAT 3 orders to have the potholes filled."

After the two recent by-elections losses to the Conservatives, it is back to winning ways this week with David Goode and the team: Knaresborough (North Yorkshire) result: LDEM: 54.9% (+20.1) CON: 35.2% (-3.3) LAB: 9.9% (-1.4) LDem GAIN from Con. No Grn (-8.5) and UKIP (-6.8) as prev. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) August 16, 2018

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Fri 17th
02:11

Streets of Edinburgh

 

Posted by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone
eUKhost