Davey: UK facing energy crunch Cable: Corbyn determined to play party political games Lib Dems: Outrageous that army reserves are on standby due to Tory Brexit mess Lib Dems: Only way forward is through a People's Vote Govt back-payment for modern slavery victims is too little too late Cable: Government wrong on People's Vote timetable Davey: UK facing energy crunch Responding to the news that Hitachi have stopped work on the Wylfa plant, former Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy Ed Davey said: Japanese businesses have warned about Brexit's economic consequences since the 2016 referendum, so this latest set ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice

John Rogers from The Lost Byway is our guide.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

On Thursday 7 February Rushcliffe Lib Dems are holding a supper event with Tom Brake MP, the party's spokesperson for Brexit and international trade. It is being held at the Larwood and Voce Pub and Kitchen, in the shadow of the Trent Bridge cricket ground in West Bridgford. As well as the chance to hear from Tom on the latest Brexit developments, the organisers promise you lively conversation and the chance to network with fellow Lib Dem members from across the East Midlands "in a relaxed and exclusive venue". Book via the East Midlands Lib Dems website.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

The Sun claims an exclusive this evening. It "can reveal" that: the Lib Dems' 12 MPs are now looking at backing the PM's Brexit deal on the proviso that she hold an In/Out referendum over it. The option emerged after its leader Sir Vince Cable saw Theresa May to discuss the crisis in No. 10. A senior Lib Dem MP told The Sun: "There is a conversation going on and a range of views in the party, and that is one option we're looking at".There are two immediate problems with this. The first is that, given the huge Commons majority ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

As there are no council by-elections this week, here's an expanded re-run of my post about why it's worth standing in as many elections as possible, including council by-elections, even if victory looks a very long way off in them. The obvious reason to stand for election is that you want and hope to win. A related common reason is that you want to win and hope that standing this time means you can win on a future occasion. But it also makes sense to stand even if winning isn't on the foreseeable agenda and you are what is often ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

The phrase 'lions led by donkeys' comes from a fictional incident and is based on a myth. But it has now inspired a cheeky and effective anti-Brexit Twitter account.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Second paragraph of third letter: I'm sure that even you will soon notice that I have removed your TARDIS's Dimensional Controller. I hope that will be a lesson to you about your tiresome meddling. This is a spinoff anthology of 128 letters that might have been written to or about the Doctor up to 2015 (so up to the first third of the Capaldi era). All are related to televised stories, with the exception of a note from the First Doctor addressed to Horatio Nelson referring to the "Hordes of Betralamir". (I'm delighted to say that this seems to have ...

I am delighted that the Serious Fraud Office in partnership with the North West Serious Crimes Unit and the Merseyside Police have today issued warrants in respect of people behind two Liverpool properties and the Angel Gate development in Manchester. ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?
Thu 17th
15:30

Liberal Anti-Fascism

The death of Pawel Adamowicz marks a turning point. With the rise of the right there has been a spike in political violence in Europe and in the US. Bombs are being thrown, people threatened, and people killed in the name of so-called "populism". The moment Adamowicz's killer linked his actions with allegations levelled at the Civic Platform group of politicians is the moment when it became a political act. The same goes for the murder of the MP Jo Cox. These are symptoms of the augmentation of what we deem as populism to a far more reactionary line of ...

Posted by Edwin Black on Liberal Democrat Voice

Come along to find out more and have your say about these exciting proposals.

Posted by Paul Hulbert on Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington
YouGov

[IMG: Sandgate Farmers Market advert] Please lend your support to the first Sandgate Farmers Market of 2019! The market will be at the Chichester Hall, Sandgate High Street from 10-12.30 this Saturday 19th January. There's a free to enter draw and a chance to win a £10 voucher to spend at the market, and we will be recording a 10 minute piece for the Dominic King Show on Radio Kent. Please come along! The Sandgate Farmers Market is held on the first and third Saturday of each month from 10-12.30pm in the Chichester Hall on Sandgate High Street. Forthcoming dates ...

This week in Parliament we might just have scored the first victory in our long march to a People's Vote. Now, if a referendum is truly close at hand, the hard work must now start: we need to convince Brexit Britain that it ought to change its mind. Sure, Remain's supposedly got an eight-point lead in the opinion polls. But that was true in 2016... plus ça change? To win, we must convince Leave voters in places like the East Midlands town of Wellingborough, where I live and had the pleasure to be Lib Dem candidate at the last General ...

Posted by Chris Nelson on Liberal Democrat Voice

[IMG: Kent Police van and car (Editor5807 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons)] There have been a number of reports of telephone calls being made to members of the public by fraudsters pretending to be Police Officers. They have been asking for personal details, Bank Account details and PIN numbers. Some fraudulent transactions have then been made. Please be aware - Police officers will never call members of the public requesting financial details or for any payments over the telephone, via email or in person. All incidents must be reported to Kent Police. Be SAFE - ...

In the year that the Open University celebrates its 50th anniversary, the annual higher education student statistics release from HESA (*) paints a gloomy picture for lifelong learners. Overall part-time student enrolments continue to decline,...Continue Reading The post Open University student enrolments fall 44% since 2009/10 appeared first on ten pence piece.

Posted by tim on ten pence piece

Our Jamie Stone is known for his inimitable comic timing and sense of humour. Last night he earned himself a telling off from Speaker John Bercow after he waved a credit card at DUP leader Nigel Dodds who was extolling the virtues of the confidence and supply arrangement which saved Theresa May's Government. The agreement famously bought the party off with an extra billion quid over five years for Northern Ireland. It seemed that even Dodds was trying hard not to laugh at Jamie's gesture: Waving a credit card at Nigel Dodds after he refers to the importance of the ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice
Thu 17th
11:00

My tweets

Wed, 12:56: Great thread. https://t.co/raCmKpJlFV Wed, 14:32: After a Historic Defeat in the House of Commons, What's Next for Brexit? Why I think No Deal is now the most likely... https://t.co/7oHivEf7dz Wed, 14:51: RT @smsaideman: Well, it is the dumbest option, so of course https://t.co/8eSpkaJETI Wed, 15:05: ...which is rather less than the 100+ we were hearing about earlier. https://t.co/0AqNITVSsP Wed, 15:39: RT @apcoworldwide: After a historic defeat in the House of Commons, what's next for #Brexit? Our @nwbrux explains: https://t.co/m0ql3oVeFM... Wed, 16:05: RT @jonnymorris1973: Answering the phone by telling people your phone number. (One of those things TV shows ...

Early last year, a stretch of historic retaining wall collapsed on the Overton Road at Ludford. There have been two-way lights in place since. The work to repair the wall will be more extensive than first thought and could take three months. The lights are therefore likely to be in place until the end of June. An application has been submitted for listed building consent to allow the work to go ahead. One of the most frequent questions I get is when the long collapsed wall at Ludford House is going to be repaired. The initial problem was that there ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

As everybody reading the excellent study of history since Caesar's times of the North Sea trade by Oxford historian and former BBC journalist Michael Pye, "The Edge of the World: How the North Sea made us what we are" can attest, the trade relations between the British/English and the Dutch (Frisians) Celtic tribes was the beginning of 20 centuries of close economic and ethnic ties. The DNA of inhabitants of areas from Kent to York is indistinguishable from that of people living in Friesland and Holland in the Netherlands; and Frisian is halfway the English and Dutch language. Migration and ...

Posted by Bernard Aris on Liberal Democrat Voice

Who should we blame for the bizarre and humiliating indecision in which the Mother of Parliaments finds itself, having kept the government in power when it cannot deliver its programme? Well, first, the cabinet, for failing to force the Prime Minister to listen – as she finally claims to be doing – or at least [...] The post Back to square one with the Brexit constipation appeared first on Radix.

Posted by David Boyle on Radix

A bit of light relief this morning with the very serious story in The Times that scientists want to spend £21 billion on building a 100km-long circular tunnel, a successor to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) under the Swiss-French border to smash sub-atomic particles together. The intention is that the Future Circular Collider would be nearly four times larger than the Large Hadron Collider and aim to fill gaps in our knowledge of the universe: "You can think of a collider as a microscope," Jonathan Butterworth, of University College London, who has contributed to the plans, said. "The point of ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
eUKhost

The Backbench debate on incorporating Mental Health First Aid into First Aid At Work legislation is scheduled to take place this morning in Parliament. The Government statement on this is here, with a debate pack pdf link at the bottom entitled, "Mental health first aid in the workplace". One of the reasons I entered politics, as a career musician, was my concern over mental health care and the lack of provision for those experiencing mental ill-health. In March 2015 I successfully amended Liberal Democrat party policy on Mental Health to include incorporating mental health first aid into physical First Aid ...

Posted by Kirsten Johnson on Liberal Democrat Voice

Just to let residents know about four recent planning applications in our area . Please just let us know if you have any queries. Single storey extension at side 315 Heywood Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2RF Ref. No: 63658 | Received: Wed 09 Jan 2019 | Validated: Wed 09 Jan 2019 | Status: Registered Lawful development certificate for proposed loft conversion 32 Simister Green, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2RY Ref. No: 63657 | Received: Wed 09 Jan 2019 | Validated: Wed 09 Jan 2019 | Status: Registered Change of use from shop (Class A1) to business office (Class B1(a)) and amendments ...

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone

Just before Christmas I was able to meet with staff from both the Council and NHS Bury Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for an update on mental health services for children and young people (historically referred to as CAMHS – Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services). This followed on from a written question at the last full meeting of Bury Council about current waiting times for CYP Mental Health services in Bury. The 'core' CYP Mental Health service in Bury is provided by Pennine Care Foundation NHS Trust, under the name 'Healthy Young Minds'. The good news is that here in ...

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone

Greater Manchester Police have announced that a 14-year-old boy from Whitefield has been charged with burglary following fire before Christmas at Prestwich Methodist Church. Police enquiries established that the building had been broken into shortly before the blaze took hold, and a number of items were stolen from inside. The fire caused significant damage to the building, which only recently celebrated its 90th anniversary, but is now expected to require expensive repairs. He will appear at Manchester and Salford Youth Court on January 21, 2019.

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone

Councillors have been told that plans to break up our local hospital trust are expected to be published next month (February 2019). Pennine Acute, which currently operates four hospitals, will be broken up. North Manchester General Hospital becoming part Manchester University Foundation Trust (which runs MRI and Wythenshawe hospitals). Fairfield, Oldham and Rochdale will be absorbed by Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. It is expected that the spilt of the trust will be completed by March 31, 2020. There is no information if services at each hospital will change, but probably they will over time.

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone

From the Curator of Museum Services at the University of Dundee : We kick off 2019 with a new exhibition in the Tower Foyer Gallery highlighting some of the most exciting recent additions to our collections. Since our last Recent Acquisitions exhibition in 2017, over 1 400 items have been catalogued into the Museum Collections, a small selection of which are shown here. Among the highlights are: • artworks acquired by Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design from the annual Degree Shows• fascinating natural history specimens from Life Sciences and Anatomy• drawings from the Moira Macgregor Bequest, a ...

Shropshire Council has cut £48 million from its budget over the last three years under pressure of government cuts. It will need to cut, or in its words "save", £18.5m next year. The list of cuts is appalling. Public health services will get a big hit. Giving up smoking, reducing obesity and promotion of healthy lifestyles will be hammered. People from Wales will be snubbed. There will be cuts to social support, including cuts to day centres, though there is doubt whether all the cuts can be achieved. Proposed cuts in 2019/20 Public Health Council leaders are planning very damaging ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington
Thu 17th
05:51

May-Hem

It's been a while since I wrote a blog about politics - one reason for this is that, as I've noted previously, by the time I've got my head around what happened, something else absurd has hogged the spotlight, rendering my initial observations moot. It's been another one of *those* weeks in Parliament, hasn't it? And it's only half-way through the week! MayBot Speech Theresa May stood outside Number 10 last night and gave, what could politely be called a speech - the MayBot had obviously been rebooted and needed to re-run her basic programming: a cobbled together mish-mash of ...

Posted by Dani Tougher on More Than Nothing

Rudd has not delayed roll out of universal credit, DWP confirmsUpskirting to be crime after Lords back billThe best, pithiest comment I've seen on that GIlette ad furoreFacebook's '10 Year Challenge' Is Just a Harmless Meme - Right?(maybe not) More than 17,000 sick and disabled people have died while waiting for welfare benefits, figures showNHS stats on trans people detransitioning."Out of a sample of 303 only 1 detransitioned, giving an initial detransition rate of 0.33%. However this person subsequently retransitioned, resulting in a aggregate total detransition rate of 0.00%" Schools census used to enforce immigration laws, minister saysYou know, like ...

Cable: Either Corbyn backs Brexit or he backs the people Responding to the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn's vote of no confidence in the Conservative Government by 325 votes to 306 votes, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said: Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party cannot procrastinate any longer. Either he backs Brexit or he backs the people. He has a responsibility, to get off the fence and provide some effective opposition. The only serious option is what the Liberal Democrats have been calling for since the 24th June 2016, a people's vote with the option to remain in the ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice