Commenting on the announcement that the government are to cut grants for some electric and hybrid cars, Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson Tim Farron said: "This short-sighted decision from government is a dagger to the heart of their claims that they are serious about improving air quality. Encouraging people to buy cars that are less polluting makes sense and Liberal Democrats demand better for our environment than more Conservative cuts."
Anne Applebaum says Viktor Orbán has duped the Brexiteers: "Whatever language about 'European ideals' or 'Christianity' Orbán's disciples use at their government-sponsored think-tank events, in practice their destruction of institutions, including the media and the courts, has led directly to corruption and the entrenchment of their own power." Do universities liberalise students? Paula Surridge says the connections between education and political behaviour should be studied. Victoria Bateman thinks John Stuart Mill's ideas could save capitalism. "Years before Seinfeld, Hancock's Half Hour - a show about nothing. And like Seinfeld, George Costanza, Elaine and Kramer, the dysfunctional household of Hancock, Sid, ...
We often talk about the churn in the Liberal Democrat vote - we may get a similar number of votes at two consecutive elections, but a lot of the people who voted for us at the first will not have voted for us second time round. Do we also get a churn in the areas where we win power too? When I was elected as a councillor back in the 1980s there were vanishingly few local authorities where the Liberal/SDP Alliance had overall control. One authority we did run was Adur, a district council in West Sussex whose largest town ...
From the Shropshire Star: Councillor Shana Roberts, who represents the Stirchley ward on Brookside and Stirchley Parish Council, has also been selected to be the Liberal Candidate for the Brookside ward in the 2019 borough council elections. She was originally elected in 2017 and is the current chair of local action project, Brookside Big Local.The report goes on to quote Shana Roberts: "After some soul searching I decided to go back to my Liberal Democrat roots and I have found a family of authentic, honest and driven people who give me hope. People who focus on the good they can ...
So today I read that the photography company that the Christian Institute hired to record their appearance outside the Supreme Court hearing, returned their money £267 and said it was against their morals to complete the job. Now this may be a good thing to do on the day that the Christian Institute think they have started the fight back against LGBT+ equality but I think it should be the last time we do this to the homophobes and anti-LGBT+ individuals who come to us for service. Here is why. Most normal people are well aware of how many LGBT+ ...
This is shocking and disturbing: Suicide attempts have become more frequent in British deportation detention centres, with on average about two attempts every day this summer, according to a freedom of information request response passed to the Guardian. Between April and June of this year there was a 22% rise in the number of detainees who tried to kill themselves, according to the FoI response from the Home Office, obtained by the organisation No Deportations. In all, 159 attempts were recorded. [The Guardian] Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, has responded to the news saying: Locking up vulnerable ...
"Liberalism made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it. Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people. Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards freedom and open markets has gone into reverse, even as China, soon to be the world's largest economy, shows that dictatorships can thrive." So begins the plea for radical liberalism in the Economist a fortnight ago, and it continued with a diatribe against the kind of liberalism that has become "a complacent ...
Note from the local NHS bodies A series of meetings are taking place during October and November to provide an update on plans for developing hospital sites in west Hertfordshire. The meetings, led by West Herts Hospitals NHS Trust and Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group, are taking place in each locality. The details of the [...]
At Autumn Conference I had the opportunity to speak with the National Farmers Union, receiving an in-depth briefing on farming issues in North Devon. I have been keenly following the passage of the Agriculture Bill through Parliament, knowing that this legislation will affect thousands of farmers up and down this country. The Agriculture Bill seeks to provide for a range of enabling powers to ensure "stability" for farmers as the UK exits from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy and compliance with the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Agriculture. It also introduces new measures to change the way in which farmers ...
Yesterday the Welsh Assembly backed a bill that would lower the voting age to 16 for elections to it. If this becomes law, 16 year olds in Wales and Scotland will have a say in their future, but 16 year olds in England will not. My son's classmates were able to vote in the Holyrood elections in 2016 but some of them missed out in 2017 as they hadn't hit 18 yet. My son only just made it. The engagement of 16 year olds in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 was fantastic. It was great to see so many ...
Wed, 12:56: RT @pmdfoster: This on the potential impact of leaving the EU's VAT regime will (I warn you) make your eyes swim - even tho it's a v elegan... Wed, 15:53: Excellent thread on Northern Ireland and the Brexit backstop. https://t.co/BDuqlH2MXJ Wed, 20:48: The Earth is wobbling more than it should, and humans are likely the cause https://t.co/QwfI2K5VG0 Oops. Wed, 22:16: RT @Cathyofnusle: @nwbrux We all have to quit jumping? Wed, 22:36: RT @LucyHartley1: @nwbrux - sunshine not always included! https://t.co/zSbmV0J5y3 Thu, 07:42: RT @Andrew_Adonis: John Major completely right about universal credit. An Iain Duncan Smith plan to make ...
The verdict of the Supreme Court in favour of Ashers bakery's refusal to make a cake supporting same-sex marriage is dodgy and dangerous. It is undoubtedly a complicated case. It makes sense, on the surface, because we all have freedom of speech and freedom of thought; yet it also makes sense that if you are running a business that is serving the public then you have to serve all the public, taking them as they are, whether you agree with their opinions or not. The judgment was reached because the Supreme Court decided that it was the message, not the ...
I recently came across a scheme funded by the BBC (or more to the point more probably by its licence fee payers) to address a matter I have long had concerns about – see the link below:- Having been a councillor since 1985 I have watched the demise of local reporting on local government with increasing concern. The demise has followed the loss of many local newspapers but even where the local newspapers do exist there is rarely any serious investigative journalism going on these days. I can recall 3 former newspapers that served my community from the not ...
If this article in the Guardian is anything to go by, then there is money to be made in Theresa May's 'hostile environment'. The paper says that the Home Office has paid a handful of private contractors hundreds of millions of pounds to run the UK's immigration removal centres, but no one knows for certain just how profitable the industry is. Just one of the 10 UK facilities is run by Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, but the rest are contracted out to outsourcing firms G4S, Mitie, Serco and the US-owned GEO Group. However, any attempt to secure some ...
"Liberalism made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it. Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people. Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards freedom and open markets has gone into [...] The post Liberalism, literalism and the war against imagination appeared first on Radix.
We all have mental health, as we all have physical health. That is established. I welcome World Mental Health Awareness Day – it is great that we can celebrate and work together on better mental health for all. However, we need to recognise that fighting for good mental health provision and raising awareness is a 365-day project. Suicide is the leading cause of death in men under the age of 45. The Government, yesterday, announced a new role, Minister for Suicide Prevention. Suicide is sadly the final stage in what can be a deterioration of mental health. Regular readers will ...
This Sunday - 14th October - the Friends of the University of Dundee Botanic Garden have an event at the garden. Clare Reaney will lead a foraging walk and talk in the Garden, starting at the Education Centre at 2pm. Booking is essential for this - please e-mail fudbg.committee@gmail.com to book your place. Free to members; guests are invited to make a donation.
Responding as details of the first unexplained wealth order are revealed Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable said: "Unexplained wealth orders are an essential new tool in the fight against corruption, and I am pleased to see that they are actually being used. Our country must no longer be seen as a safe place to launder dirty money. "But this must only be the start. The Government has been extremely slow in using these against the cronies of President Putin. Ministers must go further and faster to crack down on the illegal wealth held by Putin's inner circle in the UK, ...
Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran has urged the UK Government to legislate to lower the voting age to 16 in the wake of the Welsh Assembly supporting equivalent plans today. In Scotland, a bill allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote was passed unanimously in 2015. Ms Moran said: "If we are happy to allow a 16 year old to pay tax, be a parent or serve in the army then we should not deny them the right to vote. That is why Liberal Democrats have led on this campaign from the start. "With 16 and 17-year-olds playing an active ...
