Just two today, perhaps a reflection of Parliament not sitting today... Increase in fares an insult to passengers Responding to the announcement of an average of 3.1% more for rail tickets from 2 January, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesperson Baroness Jenny Randerson said: Millions of people right across the country are paying over the odds for rail tickets despite not getting the service they pay for. It is frankly an insult to passengers to increase fares yet again. Conservative Ministers have been conspicuously absent on this announcement, no doubt because they are aware the many problems with the rail network are ...
Crossens Saturday, 8th December, St John's Primary School, Rufford Road, Crossens, from 11am to 12 noon. We will be there to meet you and discuss any Council problems you may have. No appointment necessary. Just pop in.
Another advertisement from that guide to Rye dating from a 1967 family holiday. It's proving to be the best 1/6 my parents ever spent. What makes it more interesting is that Brede Place does not appear to be open to the public today.
"Rather than writing off rural America, Democrats have an opportunity to present a vision and policy agenda that have a real shot at reversing rural and small-town America's declining living conditions. But this requires appreciating how and why those conditions plummeted in the first place, with few signs of improvement." Sarah Miller and Austin Frerick map a way forward for the Democrats. Ignazio Cabras says new breweries could revive Britain's pubs. "According to a publicity handout at the time, VOLE was in favour of 'canals, railways, shove ha'penny, old buildings, mushrooms, civil rights, cycling, recycling, allotments, blue-tits, wagtails, oak trees, ...
It's been a busy few weeks speaking at Liberal Democrat events, including both the Amber Valley and Stevenage local party AGMs in the last week.
Alan Hollinghurst has written about A Very English Scandal, the BBC drama based on the Thorpe Affair, for The New York Review of Books. In doing so he picks up something I missed in my own review for Liberator: Thorpe is played with breathtaking plausibility by Hugh Grant. Only at one moment did I have doubts. Thorpe became "the youngest man to lead a British political party in more than a century" when he gained the Liberal leadership: he was thirty-seven. Grant is fifty-eight, and his age, perfect for the more cadaverous Thorpe of the late 1970s, lends a perhaps ...
Today I'm hosting the first meeting of the Liberal Democrats' Tech Commission: an impressive mix of tech experts, academics and thinkers exploring the key challenges and opportunities of technology for our country We are at the height of a technological revolution that is transforming the world around us at a head-spinning pace. Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are opening up possibilities that until recently were the realm of science fiction. But, just as I am hopeful about the opportunities this latest revolution brings, I am also cautious about the problems and risks it will throw up, as I explained ...
[IMG: Fried banana balls make a great weekend tea time Malaysian snack] Fried Banana Balls – Cokodok This snack can be served with a sprinkling of icing sugar or with warm custard. I particularly like eating it as a serving with cream on a stack of warm pancakes.... The post Fried banana balls make a great weekend tea time Malaysian snack appeared first on FeministMama.
[IMG: A round up of Malaysian news] As a Malaysian born person I often come across other Malaysians who are now living in the UK or in other countries thirsting after home grown news. To fill this gap, I do a round... The post A round up of Malaysian news appeared first on FeministMama.
I'm booked in for my Christmas hairdo on the 20th. View Poll: Hair colour [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
I have only just come across this aphorism from Nietzsche: There are no facts, only interpretations. To that I would add this quotation from a post "Brexit Redux" by Chris Grey on his blog on the 21st November Our opinions are facts, your facts are just opinions is a logic doomed to infinite circularity. Grey attributes this attitude to the Brexiteers, though I suppose it applies to some extend to all of us. However, I will try to assess Mrs May's current performance as far as possible on verifiable facts rather than just opinions. I seems to be a fact ...
I call it the 'ten paw tango'. And it is in no way graceful or dignified for any of us. Continue reading →
The weakest danced on – smartly dressed but poorly wound – beyond exhaustion Advertisements
I've not reflected on the Brexit process for some time - partly due to having my mind occupied with other, less fraught occurrences, but also partly because by the time I've absorbed one catastrophe another has come along to one-up the former. I'm not one of the bored-by-brexiters that the media likes to hold up as an individual who, while they may have voted strongly one way or another back in 2016, is now so bored of the whole process that they 'Just want to get it done'. And, in fact, I think this designation is actually quite insulting. I ...
Fri 30th
12:16
Don't be too concerned about what Theresa May is ruling out at the moment. There are many possibilit...
Let's tally this up: Theresa May has ruled out several things in the event the vote on her deal does not pass through parliament. She has very recently ruled out trying to go for an EEA arrangement, citing free movement (let's face it, the ending of which was the only part of Brexit she ever liked or cared about; it was always her one true red line). She has ruled out recalling parliament over Christmas or trying to renegotiate with the EU. She has ruled out a second referendum. She has ruled out parliament cancelling Brexit outright. She has ruled ...
When I first came across the practice of 'sex for rent', I was appalled. Why do people end up in a truly awful and exploitative situation with a landlord which clearly should be against the law? We know that sex for rent is a widespread problem. A YouGov poll says that 250,000 women in the UK had been offered reduced or free rent in exchange for sexual favours in the past five years. Yet as a crime it is under-reported and there are next to no prosecutions. It is already against the law to advertise sex for rent on pillar ...
Thu, 18:34: And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini https://t.co/JMBh8XsaMP Fri, 09:38: November books https://t.co/JLiom8BdX7 Fri, 10:45: RT @PickardJE: this is one of the greatest newspaper corrections in history https://t.co/NWUDmMOE70
A couple of days ago I saw a tweet from a well-respected name in the cultural sector: he had been at an event for people who worked in the same area of the industry as himself and noted that he was one of the few there who did not have a PhD level qualification. Several Twitterers of the same ilk and experience level responded with assurances that they didn't have one either and that it had been no barrier to their ongoing career prospects, but it did get me thinking... Image Source: store.metmuseum.org As those of you who may have ...
Christmas lights switch on in Whickham on Tuesday - the movie!
I am a man of the people. You are part of the metropolitan liberal elite. They are enemies of the people, citizens of nowhere. That's the populist self-characterization that more and more right-wing politicians are now making. It's an easy appeal to the 'ordinary' person against the sophisticated, over-educated and privileged. It works very well even when wielded by old Etonian Oxbridge graduates like Boris Johnson, or former city traders like Nigel Farage. The terms 'elite' and 'establishment' are elided, and blended with 'liberal', into a hostile image of people who claim superiority because of their expertise and knowledge, against ...
They know everything. That is why they were elected to high office. President Trump is not only a high-flying real estate tycoon. He is also a top flight climatologist, superb firefighter, expert military strategist, brilliant constitutional lawyer, intelligence supremo, trade negotiator without equal and peerless economist. Brexiteer Boris Johnson's years as a scribe and Jacob Rees-Mogg's banking experience have clearly made them detailed specialists on every aspect of British life likely to be touched by Brexit , which is—everything. The knowledge of these men is truly staggering. They could save British and American taxpayers hundreds of billions of pounds and ...
It is ironic that the BBC, the broadcaster that has done the most to advance the Brexit cause and continues to do so every day on its Today programme, should be the first out of the blocks in offering to host a debate on Theresa May's Brexit agreement. Unfortunately, their failure to challenge the Prime Minister's chosen format, other than to include audience questions, leaves them failing in their duty to provide balanced coverage. The idea that we should have a debate between a Prime Minister who was once a Remainer, but is now leading us out of the EU ...
Non-fiction: 1 (YTD 46) 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem, by Ruth Padel [IMG: 0099429152.01._SX175_SY250_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg] Fiction (non-sf): 6 (YTD 32) Baptism in Blood, by Jane Haddam Burr, by Gore Vidal The Stone Book Quartet, by Alan Garner The Prisoner and The Fugitive, by Marcel Proust And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini All The King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren [IMG: bd5176da8518e53597833505451437641506f41[1].jpg] [IMG: 92319db45ca6ff6593435746241437641506f41[1].jpg] [IMG: 9f14f1a793fdfcb593268675677437641506f41[1].jpg] Theatre: 1 (YTD 4) Hamlet, by William Shakespeare [IMG: 0521094747.01._SX175_SY250_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg] sf (non-Who): 2 (YTD 105) Hybrid, by Shaun Hutson Hardwired, by Walter Jon Williams [IMG: 0316860751.01._SX175_SY250_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg] [IMG: B005O5VR3U.01._SX175_SY250_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg] Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD ...
Labour MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy, makes a case for rethinking the Brexit mess in which our Conservative Government and indeed the Leadership of her own Labour Party finds itself – see the link to the Guardian website below:- I think we have always known that the majority of Labour MP's are not mad Brexiteers but their voices have been hard to hear as they fear losing their seats if they stand up against Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit enabling policy stance. But here we have a Labour MP who has broken cover and is saying some things that many progressives ...
Last night, Councillor Tracey Huffer announced an important project to help young people with mental health and wellbeing issues in the Ludlow area. For some time, we have been saying that if no one else will help our town, we must help ourselves. Ludlow Young Health is a project run by Ludlow Youth Partnership with the Children's Society. Its initial aims are to provide informal drop-in advice sessions for young people (aged 0-25). We are the first market town in Shropshire to fund our own project with the Children's Society. We are on a steep learning curve. But we have ...
A pair of defences each for Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems plus one independent seat make up this week's mini-bumper bundle of seven council by-elections. Very welcome as part of that is the appearance of a full set of seven Liberal Democrat candidates. Kelsey and Eden Park, Bromley Julie Ireland, who has been a key figure in the recovery of the Liberal Democrats in this area, stood for the party this time: Kelsey & Eden Park (Bromley) result: CON: 45.2% (+0.8) LAB: 29.1% (+1.7) LDEM: 17.6% (+2.7) UKIP: 6.1% (+2.4) GRN: 2.0% (-7.6) Conservative HOLD. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) November ...
The Christmas Lights Switch On in West Port is later today! Don't miss it! Events take place in West Port in front of the Globe : 4.20 - 4 30 Fiddlers4.30 - 4.40 Trombone Trio4.40 - 4.55 Children's Christmas Choir4.55 - 5.00 Piper5.00 West Port Christmas Tree Lights Switch On5.00 - 5.10 Piper There will be hot spiced apple juice being served to adults and hot chocolate being served to the children.
