Not surprisingly, there have been no press releases on Remembrance Sunday. Normal service will, I presume, resume tomorrow.
William Wallace says Britain's security depends upon our co-operation with others. He also reveals that his father served in the Gordon Highlanders in the first world war. I had a great uncle who did the same. "The BBC is an Anglican broadcaster, which faces the same conflict of purpose. It follows the highest journalistic standards, yet it feels it must also reflect the national mood. Britain voted to leave the EU. The nation spoke, and in respecting 'the people's verdict,' the BBC has done what every enemy of free inquiry wants reporters to do." Nick Cohen shows how the BBC ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 534th 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 (4-10 November, 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. Four council by-elections, four Liberal Democrat candidates ...
100 years ago today the guns on the Western Front fell silent. The horror that was World War 1 had ceased. And it was horrific. Apart from the millions killed, millions of others had their lives and futures torn apart. It was in that spirit that the ceremonies of remembrance started. They meant it when [...]
James Hawes is one of my favourite contemporary novelists. His Speak for England, as well as being hugely enjoyable in its own right, can claim to have anticipated Brexit. He is also a historian. I can recommend his The Shortest History of Germany - and not only because it does what is says on the dustwrapper. The unified Germany of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he argues, was largely the result of conquest by Prussia. And Prussia was a military state with a very different outlook from the emerging democracies of Western Europe. It was Germany's - and ...
I found pictures of the Armistice Day commemorations in Paris today deeply moving. President Emmanuel Macron spoke with dignity against nationalism and war. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, stood next to him, underlining how these two great European powers, which had fought each other three times during a period of just 75 years, are now [...]
Sun 11th
19:40
Why one of the UK's top polling experts no longer believes in voting intention opinion polls
The latest edition of Matt Forde's excellent and funny The Political Party podcast features Andrew Cooper, former Conservative party strategist, invigorating tweeter and all-round polling expert. It's an excellent discussion of how polling works, its role in politics and why Andrew Cooper no longer believes in voting intention questions in opinion polls. Listen here:
By the time I had finished chasing rainbows at Great Oxendon yesterday, it was threatening to get dark. So I abandoned my plan to walk home and caught the bus instead. Even before I checked the timetable, I knew there wouldn't be too long to wait. There are two buses an hour between Northampton and Market Harborough. That is soon to change. A service update from Stagecoach says it has been through a process of reviewing its entire bus network across the Midlands. Over this period detailed analysis has taken place to review passenger numbers on each route and ways ...
On Tuesday 4th August 1914 the Vicar of New Mill, near Huddersfield, called a meeting, summoned by the local "bellman." About 500 people, almost the entire population of the village, met outside the church and unanimously resolved: That this meeting of inhabitants of the Holmfirth Division of New Mill and district urges the Government to maintain Britain's neutrality in the present crisis unless her interests are clearly and plainly attacked. * . . . [T] First Word War was in may ways more disastrous for Russia than the second.. In 1914 she was not nearly prepared. Even by the standards ...
Sun 11th
18:00
Shropshire in crisis: Don't spend £25 million on Shirehall, council staff should work around t...
Shropshire Council is the largest employer in our county outside the NHS. Yet it has concentrated most of his staff in Shrewsbury. That sucks jobs and expenditure from the rest of the county. It also means that its view of Shropshire is dominated by Shrewsbury and rural areas barely get a look in. There is a different model. Back office operations could be devolved around the county. Shirehall should be knocked down and replaced with a mix of offices and homes. Either way the rest of the county would get an economic and democratic boost. Shropshire Council's plans for refurbishment ...
Watch the new video from Amnesty International UK, explaining the benefits of the Human Rights Act.
I've never been to a large city Remembrance Day event before but today I went into Liverpool seemingly with half the rest of the world as our 3 car Ormskirk Line Merseyrail train was packed out and cosy standing room only by the time we got to Liverpool Central Station. This was the scene outside St. Georges Hall where the main event was taking place:- And here's a shot of hundreds of thousands of poppies being released from atop St. John Beacon:- I then went on to Liverpool's famous bombed out church – St. Lukes – at the top of ...
This is Shirley Bassey aged 19 and she is amazing. Burn My Candle was deemed so suggestive by the BBC that they refused to play it. You can see their point. Remarkably, it was written by Ross Parker, who had co-written the wartime standards "There'll Always Be an England" and "We'll Meet Again". Maybe the 1950s were more exciting than we think?
Sat, 12:56: RT @goldipipschmidt: Curious factoid that I have just been apprised of: Cary Grant went to the same primary school (in Bristol) at the same... Sat, 15:29: Speaking in the Serbian Parliament, as seen in Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus. https://t.co/rqTXms5IeO Sat, 16:05: Here are over 2,500 words on the role London's tube has played in TV's Doctor Who https://t.co/ynRcIk0X6P Glorious. Sat, 16:45: RT @marklowen: In today's @lemondefr: When #Trump received the leaders of #Estonia, #Latvia and #Lithuania, he began by blaming them for... Sat, 17:39: Bohemian Rhapsody: nostalgia and accents https://t.co/RpMSdZrE9a Sat, 19:20: RT @lowflyingrocks: 2018 VX1, 8m-19m in diameter, ...
As acts of remembrance take place in communities the length and breadth of the country, our senior people have said what the day means to them: At the eleventh hour the guns fell silent. A hundred years on my thoughts are with those who did not live to enjoy it, or the futures they had dreamed of #Armistace100 — Christine Jardine MP (@cajardineMP) November 11, 2018 * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
You there! Before you go. How should we recall you? ~ After waiting's deadly boredom has expired, broken down beneath that storm of steel, below their shock and awe; ~ Since time has swallowed your vitality, stripping bare bones to dusty, hazy memories (all simplified, as people do); ~ Now few of us would recognise [...]
It seems strangely appropriate that I should be in Belgrade today. After all, the first world war started here; the first shots of the war were fired by an Austrian river monitor ship against the city's defences. (Of course this was a consequence of the Sarajevo assassination a month before.) But there is a family link also. My grandfather, who was born in 1880 and fought throughout the first world war in the 6th Royal Dublin Fusliers, part of the 10th (Irish) Division, fought in the Battle of Kosturino in December 1915, for which he was awarded the Order of ...
Remembering the First World War is a very immediate emotion for me. I was the youngest child of a late family. My father had been born in 1899. He joined up in mid-1917, and went out in a reinforcement draft to the Highland Division on the Western front in late March 1918, just as the great German attack got under way. As others died and he survived he rapidly rose from lance-corporal to staff sergeant. When at last in his 80s he began to talk about his experiences, he told me that at one point he was second in command ...
Here's a fascinating bit of Liverpool City Region railway history which I have only just caught up with – The story and write-up is from 'Old Liverpool Railways' and can be accessed on YouTube via the link below:- www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMtl3HCSHw0 Click on the photo (which is also amongst my Flickr shots at:- www.flickr.com/photos/86659476@N07/) to enlarge it.
Charles Homer Bosworth was my great grandfather. He lived in Codford in Wiltshire. Born in 1888, he served in the First World War and gets a mention in the Codford Roll of Honour: Charles Homer Bosworth served in the British Army during World War 1 and spent time in Russia as part of his service. Until a couple of months ago, that was as much as my sister and I and our cousins knew about his first World War Service. Then we got in touch with our Dad's cousin in the US and he was able to tell us some ...
From the City Council : THE ROADS TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984 - SECTION 14 (1b) THE DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL AS TRAFFIC AUTHORITY being satisfied that traffic on the road should be prohibited by reason of the Centenary of Poland's Day of Independence Parade HEREBY PROHIBIT the driving of any vehicle in: 1 Wilkie's Lane2 Blackness Road3 Glenagnes Road This notice comes into effect on Sunday 11th November 2018 from 13:25 to 13:45 hours. Closures will be enforced by Police Scotland officers. No diversion routes will be available. For further information contact 433275. Executive Director of City DevelopmentDundee City Council
Strange Meeting By Wilfred Owen It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,— By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from ...
