Cavity appearing in NHS dental workforce Product safety symbol another Brexit hit for businesses Nuclear treaty withdrawal risks global instability Cable: Nissan decision symbolises the loss of confidence in the UK Cavity appearing in NHS dental workforce Responding to the reports that 1 in 4 new patients not currently on the books with an NHS dentist have tried and failed to secure an appointment due to recruitment problems, Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Judith Jolly said: This statistic is appalling and should be to Matt Hancock and those in the Conservative Government. As we see more and more dentists leave the ...
Forty years ago today, the Doctor was facing The Armageddon Factor - the climax of his quest for the Key To Time. It's one of my favourite and most fun years of Doctor Who, yet this finale tells a grimmer story. A world inexplicably breaks off trade with its closest neighbour, goes to war instead and ends up nearing utter destruction, while its leader* spouts self-deluded nationalist propaganda with Churchillian rhetoric but Hitlerian meaning, promising "Victory - or death!"But the Doctor's trip to neighbouring planet Zeos poses a question that's never been answered until now: where have all the Zeons ...
Read more about the city's lost stairways in a Nottingham Post article.
The reports that Nissan are about to announce the cancellation of their proposed plans to build the X-Trail in Sunderland have led to a degree of comment. There are those who have rather unkindly suggested that the good people of Sunderland are paying the price for believing what they were told during the referendum campaign about the rosy prospects for the country outside the EU. But, in a complex world, it is easy to believe those whose narrative reflects your perceived experience. After all, they're telling you what you want to hear, feeding into years of unhappiness. No, if such ...
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 541st 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 (27 January – 2 February, 2019), 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. By-election in Peterborough in ...
So, some Labour MPs are rumoured to be preparing to leave their Party post Brexit debate. There are talks of 6 heavily involved and perhaps 20 in total. From my own observations I think that is highly credible but not ... Continue reading →
"Would you like to apologise for misleading your Twitter followers?"@AlexisConran gave @DKShrewsbury the chance to clarify his tweet saying there was 'no Marshall Plan for us.' He decided to hang up. pic.twitter.com/A8Sb9fDq1Y— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) February 3, 2019Wikipedia turns us all into experts, so I can reveal that Britain was the greatest beneficiary of the US Marshall Aid programme that helped reconstruct Europe after the second world war. Which makes this tweet from Daniel Kawczynski, the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury, troubling: Britain helped to liberate half of Europe. She mortgaged herself up to eye balls in process. No Marshall Plan for ...
Responding to reports that Nissan is expected to announce that it is cancelling a planned investment at its Sunderland plant, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said:"The Conservatives have lost the right to call themselves the party of business. If these reports are true, the extent to which the Government have destroyed businesses' confidence in the UK is clear."This is a massively significant decision which has largely been driven by Brexit. Nissan has been a big British success story based on confidence in the United Kingdom. This decision is just as symbolic as it is important. "The Liberal Democrats ...
This is my video diary of my council and campaign activities in January, covering the meetings I attended, action days attended, site visits carried out and occasional views on issues such as Gateshead Council's budget.
At what point short of the cliff edge do Liberal Democrats say "Enough!" When in this utterly bonkers trashing of our economy do we call for the immediate revocation of Article 50? We know that the UK can do that without requiring the consent of the other 27 EU member states. We also have it as part of our policy to call on the Government to suspend Article 50 to legislate for a People's Vote or to avoid no deal and, if that suspension isn't agreed, to call for the revocation of Article 50. Here's the motion we passed at ...
Today's headline commercial news is that Nissan has decided that the new X-Trail ( a "family-sized" 4X4 road vehicle) originally planned for its Sunderland plant will instead be made in Japan. This is in spite of Nissan's assurances given to the government in 2016 that, come what may (or May?) production would remain in the UK. I can't quite see why we need yet another gas-guzzling 4x4, but if one is to be produced the I'd prefer that British workers and Britain's economy to be the beneficiaries. About a month ago I read that the firm which produces Britain's Centurion ...
Sun 3rd
16:55
The new year's resolutions we can't break and the Brexit nightmare for local government
Councillor Howard Sykes is the Liberal Democrat Group Leader at the Local Government Association. In the latest of his guest blogs, he talks about what Brexit means for local government. Belated Happy New Year! I don't know about you but I began 2019 with the best of intentions, vowing to ditch bad habits for good. But already the last traces of willpower are fading away. Three weeks into the New Year, most people have given up their New Year's resolutions – just weeks after they were made. (Three-quarters of 3,000 British adults surveyed in January admitted they were no longer ...
Sun 3rd
15:35
Philip Hammond talks about second referendum while Corbyn approves "unholy alliance" to deliver Brex...
There's some interesting nuggets in the Sunday Times reports on the Brexit chaos and ongoing shenanigans. It's not the headlines, which are about the Royal Family being moved out of London if there are no deal riots, or the supposed new party to be formed on Valentine's Day as Labour MPs resign the whip. It's what else is in the article. Earlier this week, Christine Jardine talked about the Labour Party became the "handmaids of Brexit" after their votes blocked Yvette Cooper's amendment and helped pass Graham Brady's time-wasting one calling for unicorns on the Irish border. Well maybe unicorns ...
Self-growing polymers repair themselves when fractured. A news article looking at work undertaken by researchers in Japan to develop materials that repair themselves when subjected to mechanical stress, just like human muscle tissue. Published by Chemistry World. Read it here.
In 2015 and 2016, Labour's starry eyed members voted overwhelmingly for Jeremy Corbyn as their leader. The 2017 general election rather disguised the problem Jeremy Corbyn is for Labour. What appeared to be a good election result (it looked good only because the assumptions about the outcome were so bad for Labour), turned out to be a much less generous picture for Labour. While there had been a
Prince Buster's real name, rather wonderfully, was Cecil Bustamente Campbell. He had an enormous influence on the development of ska, rocksteady and reggae in Jamaica, and those styles are now part of the global musical palate. The British band Madness took its name from this band and their first single was a tribute to Prince Buster with a cover of this on the B-side. They later had a hit with another of his songs: One Step Beyond.
As if watching the news was not bad enough, today's Independent seeks to depress us even more with a series of headlines, which underline the depths to which our politics has sunk. Switching from the banal to the serious, these latest developments in the Brexit saga tell us exactly why we have become a laughing stock in the world. It sounds even worse when you listen to the way this American TV presenter describes the dilemma we are in. And the graphic doesn't even cover this story on the BBC, that Nissan is expected to announce that it is cancelling ...
Vince was on Sophy Ridge on Sky this morning. First on the agenda was Nissan's reported decision to pull X-Trail production from Sunderland: 'It's very worrying for the North East, the workers and their families' – Lib Dem leader @vincecable says Brexit is a major contributing factor as to why major car manufacturers are cancelling future work in Britain.#Ridge For more on Nissan, head here: https://t.co/KxKLJs9ljT pic.twitter.com/HjbCi0E4T7 — Ridge on Sunday (@RidgeOnSunday) February 3, 2019 Although he didn't actually say that. He said we would work with people who share our values. And he specifically said that we would NOT ...
Sat, 12:14: RT @oeufelia: One thing I won't ever do again is build a snow dalek. I did that when we lived at our old house as the kids were into Dr Who... Sat, 12:56: Brexit's Brady Amendment: Game Changer or Phony War? https://t.co/8lqSuGqXXa Another masterful summary from @TonyConnellyRTE. Sat, 17:17: RT @MalmstromEU: It's done! Filling in the second eye of the traditional Japanese daruma dolls to mark the entry into force of the #EUJapan... Sat, 19:00: RT @CasMudde: I have long argued that Dutch political elite is today as much, if not more, out of touch with Dutch population ...
It looks likely that in the next few days, Nissan will announced that it will not go ahead with a planned investment at its plant in Sunderland. The Government promised Nissan in 2016 after the referendum something, though what is not clear. Why Nissan executives at the time accepted assurances that ministers were not in a position to deliver is one of the many unknowns of Brexit. I suspect
Sun 3rd
08:55Jail sentence for Peterborough MP could be increased - and force Parliamentary by-election
The conviction of Peterborough's MP Fiona Onasanya has left the prospect of a Parliamentary by-election in the balance. Her initial sentence – three months in jail – is not sufficient to automatically remove her from office, though it will automatically trigger a recall petition once the appeals timeline is played out. If 1 in 10 electors sign it, then that will force a by-election. However, things may now move more quickly as a review of her jail sentence is being carried out – and so it could yet be increased to the level which would remove her from the House ...
Communities may suffer the loss of leisure and cultural facilities, fewer bus services, unkempt parks and green spaces and see fly-tippers go unpunished without government investment in under-pressure council services. On Friday the cross-party Local Government Association launched its campaign to influence the forthcoming government Spending Review by warning about the growing risk to vital local services if the Government does not take action to secure the financial sustainability of councils. However, the LGA said that, with the right funding and powers, councils can continue to lead their local areas, improve residents' lives, reduce demand for public services and save ...
The Liverpool Echo has the article on its web site – see link below Goodness me is it really 10 years since I sat on the recruitment panel which selected Margaret Carney as the new Chief Executive of Sefton Council to replace Graham Haywood? My recollection is that Margaret was head and shoulders above all the other applicants for the job and that it was a unanimous decision to appoint her. If memory serves Margaret started out at Knowsley Council in an ordinary clerical role and through hard graft worked herself up to an Executive position at Rochdale Council ...
