There seems to be a trend for opening pubs in redundant buildings on railway stations. I have blogged before about Wellingborough's Little R'Ale House and I recently visited BeerHeadZ on Nottingham station. NottinghamshireLive explains: It's cosy. Very cosy in fact. With a capacity of just 36, it has the honour of being the city's smallest pub. The historic cabman's shelter has been turned into a relaxed, no frills spot for a pint, a glass of wine or even a bottle of posh pop. Since opening at the beginning of December, BeerHeadZ has tempted drinkers with no fewer than 47 different ...
If the rumours at Conference were even a tiny bit true, Layla Moran is partial to the occasional cocktail. So, as she admits herself, giving up booze for a month is going to be a challenge, but she's doing the annual Macmillan Go Sober for October challenge. Ok. Those who know me will know this is a MAJOR personal challenge. All proceeds to a good cause. Will do updates by Twitter. Wish me luck!! https://t.co/zPKXlkUh0K #GoSober2018 — Layla Moran (@LaylaMoran) October 1, 2018 She's not the first Lib Dem MP to undertake such a challenge. Back in 2013, Alistair Carmichael ...
On Monday evening I was in Lib Dem HQ with Party President Sal Brinton for the first webinar for party members about the proposed party reforms set out by Vince Cable.
With the fact that today has been World Ballet Day, I thought of this photograph. Does it show the real Billy Elliot? It is captioned: June 1958: 12 year old John Ryder and his friend Trevor Briscoe play in a back garden in the coal mining area of Amthorpe, near Doncaster. Surprisingly, miner's son John wants to be a ballet dancer and shows guts as well as ballet talent, fighting any local boys who call him 'sissy'. He has also joined the school boxing team to prove it. Before you laugh or protest too loudly at the attitudes of the ...
News that the Government will legislate for mixed sex civil partnerships in England and Wales was welcomed by various Liberal Democrats. It makes sense that people should have the choice of what form of ceremony to have. Our Lynne Featherstone was the Minister who instigated same sex marriage in England. She welcomed the news on Twitter. It was always going to have to happen after sex marriage meant our laws became discriminatory. At last – the wrong will be righted! https://t.co/HWQK6AuoY3 — Lynne Featherstone (@lfeatherstone) October 2, 2018 LGBT+ Lib Dems chair Jennie Rigg welcomed the move and said that ...
I used to have fun with Bill Etheridge, He and his wife left the Conservative Party after they were disciplined for posing with golliwogs and putting the photos on their Facebook page. They joined Ukip and Etheridge published a book: In this fearless and controversial booklet, Bill Etheridge argues that the political and social elite have cravenly surrendered to the diktat of the Politically Correct dogma that has crushed free speech, smashed enterprise and reduced Britain to a mere shadow of its former self. Using personal insights and real life examples he shows how our political leaders can no longer ...
Right-wing Conservatives like Boris Johnson and Priti Patel are calling again for tax cuts to 'free' the economy. It's always popular to call for tax cuts, so long as you don't link them to spending cuts; so it's a priority for Liberal Democrats to link the two, and point out that the Brexiteers' agenda is also one that shrinks the state further, and enforces continuing cuts in the NHS, social care, children's services - the entire welfare state – education, bus services, even police and prisons. And the Brexiteers have a problem. They promised, of course, that they could spend ...
Boris Johnson reportedly attracted over 1,000 people to his fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference today. He remains the Tory activists' darling. But the Prime Minister is not amused. In fact she told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that what she had heard about her former Foreign Secretary's speech had made her "cross" — which [...]
Day 2 prompts were "Dance" and "Tranquil" respectively, which made me think of the scene in Red Dwarf "Demons and Angels" where Cat and Rimmer are doing interpretative dance. The Truth, danced by Brother Cat: [IMG: An ink drawing of the Cat from Red Dwarf, dancing pretentiously] As usual, click to embiggen. Media: Goulet notepaper; Noodler's nib creaper fountain pen; Caran D'Ache water brush; Herbin Perle Noire, Diamine Yellow, and Sheaffer Brown inks. There's a couple of cockups on this one: I didn't wait long enough for the yellow on the forehead ornament to dry and the black for his ...
Today is our 25th wedding anniversary! We celebrated last weekend by going to Riga. I think Latvia was the EU country about which I knew least before we went there. Riga is a pretty city on the Baltic, with some lovely old architecture dating from the time when it was the biggest city in the Swedish empire. The opera house, where Wagner worked and where the Flying Dutchman was on. We didn't go inside. The cityscape views were taken from the impressive spire of St Peter's Church: Inside, there is a spacious nave and also art in the aisles. This ...
So there's a bunch of inktober prompts going around (hi everyone who follows me for politics! You may not be interested in this series of posts) and I have decided to do a mixture of the official ones and the ones from [IMG: [community profile] ] drawesome. The prompts for day one were "Poisonous" and "Potions and Bottles", which immediately made one image spring to mind: [IMG: An ink drawing of Alice Cooper holding a bottle of poison] Click image to embiggen if you want to. Media: Goulet notepaper; noodler's nip creaper pen; caran d'ache water brush; Herbin Perle Noire, ...
Responding to Conservative plans to halt businesses' access to workers from the EU, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey said:"With these plans, the Conservatives are turning their backs on British businesses and public services. "Hospitals, care homes, construction firms and other businesses already struggle to hire the workers they need - and these changes will make that problem much worse. "No wonder Theresa May has delayed setting out these policies for over a year. They are just so damaging for British jobs, our economy and the public services we all rely on. "The Liberal Democrats demand better. The Government ...
Mon, 12:56: How We Know Kavanaugh Is Lying https://t.co/3nRADxJx6D This is really forensic. Mon, 16:05: It Came From The Search Terms: Flaming September https://t.co/F1dmXeTzG9 @CAwkward reports. Mon, 16:48: RT @V_Andriukaitis: Dear @Jeremy_Hunt I was born in Soviet gulag and been imprisoned by KGB a few times in my life. Happy to brief you on... Mon, 18:36: Monday reading https://t.co/fPCdIQKpL5 Mon, 20:48: A Study Shows the Best Times of Day to Post to Social Media https://t.co/6qPgLQB7Yx Interesting! Tue, 03:42: RT @ZlataFilipovic: Oh what a night! @newsemmys https://t.co/WE7KlICeLl Tue, 07:59: RT @NobelPrize: #NobelFacts The only person who has received the Nobel Prize ...
In my last post I referred to a new book, Economics for the Many, a collection of essays edited by Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. I am very interested in any new thinking coming from the left because I spy the possibility of a coalition between liberals and socialists - whether inside Labour or between ... Continue reading Economics for the Many: Labour's challenge to the orthodoxy part 1
Tue 2nd
10:03
Blogging to you live from Conservative party conference: more Remainery than you'd expect?
Got the train up to Birmingham yesterday morning. The journey reopened for me one of the great questions of our age: why can you get to Liverpool in two hours by train, yet it takes a little more than that to get to Birmingham which is half the distance? The first thing I went to upon arrival was a panel event around the concept of Conservatives for a People's Vote. I say panel event, when really it was more like a rally. Speeches from Neil Carmichael, Anna Soubry, Justine Greening and Philip Lee were met with rapturous applause of the ...
Commenting ahead of Sajid Javid's address to Conservative party conference Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Ed Davey said:"Sajid Javid talks a good game when it comes to tackling serious violence, but if he really wants to make our streets safer he must stop cutting the number of police officers. "The Home Office's own analysis shows that police cuts have likely contributed to rising violent crime, yet the Conservatives continue to squeeze forces' budgets. "The Liberal Democrats demand better for our communities and our police. We will end the Conservative cuts and invest an extra £300 million a year to recruit ...
We know that one of the issues Christine Jardine has really got the fire in her belly about is the injustice suffered by women born in the 1950s over their State Pension. Some have to wait as much as six extra years for their State Pension and only found out about it at the last minute. She's written for the Scotsman about how this is another example of the social contract breaking down. Ironically one woman who's affected is Theresa May but she's shown no signs of wanting to help her fellow 1950s women: She was born in the 1950s, ...
The inward-looking nature of the Cardiff Bay bubble was on full display yesterday when the new Welsh Tory Leader choose a process issue as the highlight of his first public outing on the UK stage. The airwaves and other media here in Wales were replete with quotes, soundbites and discussion over the call by Paul Davies at the Tory Conference platform for Carwyn Jones' successor to seek a fresh mandate from Welsh voters in the form of a new Welsh Assembly election. Anything he might have said or wanted to say about health, education, or the economy was drowned out, ...
