Brake: Lavery's comments show Labour figures still ignoring party members Responding to Ian Lavery's comments that a People's Vote would be divisive, Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake said: I am sure many Labour voters will see these comments by their Party Chair as the real divisiveness. He side steps the fact that campaigning for a public vote is Labour policy after last year's conference. Labour can either join the Conservatives and push this deeply unpopular Brexit through, or act in the interests of the country and on the wishes of their supporters and join the Liberal Democrat campaign for ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice

One of the great things about the 2017 events to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Joe Orton was the prominence given to his sister Leonie. I can recommend her memoirs, which have the splendidly Ortonesque title I Had It In Me. Note the photo on the front of the book's jacket, which looks like a lost Smiths' sleeve.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

From Rochdale Online: Balderstone and Kirkholt councillor Kathleen Nickson has left the Labour Party and joined the Liberal Democrats. Councillor Nickson, who won 52% of the vote in last May's elections, cites alleged bullying and aggression as the reason for switching to the Liberal Democrats. She said: "I simply could not go working in an undemocratic manner. I was being told how to vote, being threatened and effectively blocked from being able to do my job as an elected member in the Labour Party."The paper also Andy Kelly, leader of the Lib Dem group on the council: "Councillor Nickson has ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

A Telford-based Bomber Command historian is appealing for Shropshire Star readers' help in shedding more light on a wartime air tragedy which saw a Wellington bomber crash not far from the Lilleshall Monument.So begins a story in my favourite newspaper. It turns out that the Wellington, which crashed after colliding with a lone British fighter, was on a training flight from RAF Market Harborough. That is the wartime airfield now partly occupied by HMP Gartree. The crash took place on 20 November 1944 and claimed the lives of the six crew members of the Wellington as well as the pilot ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Professor Sophie Scott is a psychologist and stand up comedian who will be speaking in Leicester next month - more about that at the end of this post. She has written an article for BBC News today about laughter, explaining that there are: many reasons people laugh - and most of them are not because somebody is being particularly funny.One theme she takes up is the way humour can be used to disarm criticism: Other public figures appear to carefully cultivate a "funny" image, where they often appear the butt of the joke. For example, MP Boris Johnson was arguably ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

As far as I'm aware there is only one meeting scheduled for Blyth Town Council in February Thursday 28th February, 6:30 at Arms Evertyne House - Environment Committee

Posted by Alisdair Gibbs-Barton on Alisdair Gibbs-Barton

Second paragraph of third story ("The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters" / "Filifjonkan som trodde på katastrofer"): Then she soaped and rubbed further, to the next blue stripe, and the sun was warming her back, and she stood with her thin legs in the clear water, rubbing and rubbing. Sen tvättade hon till nästa blåa rand och solen värmde hennes rygg och hon stack ner sina smala ben i det genomskinliga vattnet och gnodde, och gnodde. These are really superb little chunks of Moominland, not at all whimsical, but dark and thoughtful pieces that speak to adults trying to make ...

Fri 25th
16:48

Scotland's way out

No deal is better than a bad deal. Theresa May My prediction is that the UK is heading for a no-deal Brexit. If Theresa May thinks what she had was a good deal, then all other deals must be a bad deal, so if all other deals are bad deals, then by her logic, we'd all be better off with no deal. No one will get a deal that suits the majority because you can't have the Customs Union without freedom of movement. One side don't care about the Customs Union as long as freedom of movement is cancelled, and ...

Posted by Cameron Paton on Liberal Democrat Voice

Liberal Democrats were out in force today at the Liverpool Town Hall at the service to commemorate those who died in the genocides of Rwanda; Poland; Germany and elsewhere in massacres that continue to this day. We came to the ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

Having survived my first week back at work, I made the trek over to the Royal Derby this morning for my first Rituximab maintenance session. One of the car parks is currently closed so I...Continue Reading The post Transplant +135: A bump in the road appeared first on ten pence piece.

Posted by tim on ten pence piece
YouGov

There's a revolution in the air in the UK at the moment. Hopefully it will be a peaceful one, or at least predominantly so, but there's still very much a public mood for revolution. A mood for change - a real and permanent change to the 'establishment', and particularly the 'political establishment' that many people feel has let the country down so badly for so many years. This is something we Liberal Democrats shouldn't ignore, and we can't ignore. Just a few short years ago, back before the coalition government and the effects of the global financial crisis that hit ...

Posted by Cen Phillips on Liberal Thoughts

How old are you? Chronologically, I'm 41. In sense of humour terms, about 12. In world-weary cynicism about 9000. In my love life right now... Somebody's making me feel about 17. Which is great. ( Click for more noseying into my personal life ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments

I have lots of friends who call themselves Liberals, and I agree with almost everything they stand for. So why don't I call myself a Liberal? If I did, perhaps I wouldn't be called an "authoritarian". It'd be nice to avoid the insult, but I can't call myself a Liberal if I don't know what it means Much of the time, politics is a battle between the rights of the individual and the needs of the wider community. To be useful, I would want liberalism to help me pick a side in these battles. I think the need of the ...

Posted by George Kendall on Liberal Democrat Voice

Zoe's post on motion selection is now live, so I'm going to follow up my initial post with my thoughts on some (not all) of the actual motions. If I haven't put any comments down on a motion it's just because I would have been pretty happy to see it go on the agenda but did not have any particular passions roused by it. Other committee member's passions are different from mine, and that's as it should be. These are my views, not the views of the committee, and any issues you have with them are with me.Access to Justice ...

Fri 25th
11:00

My tweets

Thu, 12:20: Bart De Strooper: 'Bright young scientists won't come to join us in UK' https://t.co/uDm2UjhNEp Brexiteers, are you proud? Thu, 12:56: The Falklands War revisited https://t.co/HBE9DhfPve Very interesting long review of two recent books about the 1982 conflict. Thu, 16:05: We'll never see a cross-party deal on Brexit: tribalism runs too deep https://t.co/85hSpscalv I agree. Thu, 17:11: RT @CER_Grant: Sorry to disappoint, but FRA & GER are not serious about an EU army, whatever the rhetoric of some pols. If you talk to the... Thu, 17:45: Favourite quote: from the very first episode, the First Doctor's "If you could ...

One of the frustrating things about the current Brexit episode is watching Jeremy Corbyn perform in the Commons. The other day, on the Twitterdome, I compared Mr Corbyn unfavourably with past Labour leader, John Smith. I think it is fair to say that if John Smith were currently Labour leader he would, by now, have delivered a rhetorical blow to Theresa May comparable to that which he dealt to John Major with this passage of one of his Commons' speeches: In response to the plummeting popularity of the Administration itself, revealed at Newbury and in the shire county elections, we ...

Posted by Paul Walter on Liberal Democrat Voice

James Delingpole, noted Leaver, was on Andrew Neil's show last night. Neil decided to lay into him a little on the whole idea of the UK trading on WTO rules only (slight aside here: I really hate when people lay into Neil as being impartial given he is pro-Brexit when in fact, he's been one of the best journalists in the country in terms of having a go at Brexiter lazy assumptions). Neil put it to Delingpole that if you want to offer the EU tariff free access to the UK market, you need to offer the same terms to ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com

One of my favourite films is Goodbye Lenin. For those of you haven't seen the German language post-Cold War movie, it is about a loyal East German Communist party functionary who suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma just as the Berlin Wall is about to come crashing down. When she awakes her political life is completely changed. The world has moved on without her. American, Britain and the rest of Europe are in danger of suffering the same fate. They have become so obsessed with their internal difficulties and fighting for domestic political survival that they are ...

Posted by Tom Arms on Liberal Democrat Voice

On the day that a Tory Councillor posed in front of tents erected on Cardiff's Queen Street by homeless persons, and demanded that the Council sweep them away, the BBC reports on warnings by charities that street homelessness this side of Offa's Dyke is at 'crisis point'. Shelter Cymru has told the broadcaster that while the exact number of people sleeping rough is unknown, all the main organisations have reported a rise. The charity said more needed to be done to get people off the streets and into homes of their own. The BBC relate the story of one person: ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

The Statue of Liberty. Ellis Island. US history. The diversity most of us see every day. All serve to remind us we are a country of immigrants. So why the current wave of anti immigrant sentiment? While the US's relationship with immigration may precede its independence, that long history is punctuated by a range of [...] The post Immigration controversy, American style appeared first on Radix.

Posted by David Boyko on Radix
eUKhost

 

Recycling is one of the big themes of our age as concerns grow about waste of resources, pollution and climate change. But cash-strapped Shropshire Council wants to remove more than 100 bring banks from car parks and other locations. The council wants to save £230,000 and complains about fly-tipping and use of the bring banks by businesses. Today is the last day to comment. The council is scoring a home goal with its proposals. The government's new Resources and Waste Strategy aims to boost recycling. Shropshire Council aims to go in the opposite direction. It doesn't seem to have recycling ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

Today the Conservative Government has confirmed that it may have to return as much as £1.95 million to EU citizens who were forced to pay money to remain living in the country under the 'settled status' programme. It is expected some of the money will be returned to NHS staff and other vital public servants. The Government were forced into an embarrassing U-turn of the policy on the back of pressure from Liberal Democrats and MPs across the political divide. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said:"Theresa May's mean spirited charge was always wrong and I'm proud Liberal Democrats led the ...

Posted by LD Neath on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrats continue fight for a people's vote Tory failures result in increase in violent crime Cable: Airbus warning a stark reminder of the livelihoods at risk European Court of Human Rights rules against UK Govt on privacy case Govt must repay £1.95 million to EU citizens Liberal Democrats continue fight for a people's vote The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the Government's Plan B calling on the Government to prepare for a people's vote with an option to remain in the EU. The amendment, supported by all Liberal Democrat MPs, also calls on the Conservative Government "to ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice