Sound familiar. I'm not describing the current tense parliamentary situation. Forty years ago tonight, at 10pm, a vote of no confidence in Jim Callaghan's Labour Government was called. It was always going to be a knife edge. This evening, BBC Parliament broadcast a programme, A Parliamentary Coup, describing the events surrounding that vote, the referendum which led to it (the Scottish devolution referendum) and the very human stories behind it. One particular story brought to mind the dishonourable breaking of Jo Swinson's pair by Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis. It was an opportunistic breaking of an agreement. Compare and contrast ...
Time for another railway poster. This one was produced for the Midland Railway and Cromer District Council. You can find another poster for Cromer on this blog.
A telling story on the Leicester Mercury site this evening: Leicestershire business leaders want to stay in the EU - according to a straw poll at a city event today. Around 40 entrepreneurs attended the Barclays Brexit event, from small and medium sized business up and down the county. And in a show of hands only one said they would vote leave in a second referendum.In the words of one business leader quoted in the article: "The whole situation is totally wrong - as a business we've been given no information, so we have had to be flexible and adapt." ...
Welcome to the latest in my occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today it is back to the work of the trio of party membership experts Paul Webb, Tim Bale and Monica Poletti. I've looked before at their work about why many active supporters of a party choose not to join it (and hence the logic behind having a registered supporter scheme). This time it's about what makes members get active: This article asks what motivates members to engage in high-intensity election campaign activism. It argues that two factors are especially prominent: the aspiration to pursue a career ...
Good evening dear readers (no idea why I started this blog like I am Danny DeVito in L.A. Confidential). I think I am getting used to blogging again, and enjoying it! So I am afraid I must return to my default subject politics!! What have we learnt over the last few days in the nursery [...]
Marie Le Conte argues that Twitter has made politics more difficult. Now we know what every politician thinks about everything, it is harder for them to work together, "What use is Popper to a politician?" Bryan Magee once asked. KritiK looks at his answer and calls for a more rational approach to policymaking. David Watts mourns that there are no headlines when behaviour in school improves. "Imagine a time without 24-hour news, when we didn't need to be constantly updated on what was going on, when the BBC and others chose when they broadcast news and sport." Charles Runcie remembers ...
Sir Vince Cable has published a booklet "Beyond Brexit: Liberal Politics for the Age of Identity" How well does it stand up to its billing as a roadmap for the future of liberalism? And does it indeed get us beyond Brexit? Arguably it comes rather late and could have provided a corrective to the obsession that has constrained the party over the past few years. "Age of Identity" rather strangely labels what is called a new form of political alignment with its extreme illiberal manifestation: exclusive identity based on national, religious, racial or linguistic characteristics, implying these views dominate yet ...
Hot off the Lib Dem press, pointing out the devastating effects of a No Deal to farmers: Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat DEFRA Spokesperson, today challenged the Government's no deal planning which he described as "catastrophic" for rural communities. Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr. Carmichael said: Can I tell the Minister that I very much agree with him when he talks of Europe as a key export market for our Lamb producers and hill farmers. 160 of his colleagues last night voted for a no deal Brexit, including the Hon. Member who asked the question [Chris Davies, Brecon and ...
The starting point for this piece is "What use is Popper to a politician?" by Bryan Magee. Magee is a long standing advocate for Popper and therefore the philosophical position known as Critical Rationalism (CR). Without wishing to take away from Poppers contribution, I prefer to use CR and make clear that this is not advocating the opinions of a person but to argue for a constructive philosophical approach to policy formulation. Magee is that rare thing in the UK a public intellectual who was an elected politician. First as a Labour MP then for the newly formed SDP. The ...
Suddenly, what seemed like a faraway goal is becoming very real and very imminent. Just over a year ago I managed to finish a Parkrun without walking any of it for the first time and now I'm 31 days away from doing 26.2 miles in full view of an awful lot of people. And as it gets closer, it means there are a lot of firsts and lasts as the days tick by. I'm closing in on my last really big training run (next weekend) which follows on from running my first organised half-marathon last weekend. The proof!Yes, last weekend ...
Last night parliament voted on a series of 'indicative' motions for Brexit. This morning there is, of course, much consternation at the fact that none of those gained a majority, but that was always going to be the case. Parties are split, parliament is split, and this 'part 1' vote was only the start of a process, where 'first preferences' were going to be expressed. Much of the coverage suggests that the votes don't move us any further forward, but I don't believe that that is the case at all. Actually, I think it moves us forward a great deal, ...
Wed, 12:56: RT @DPhinnemore: "The world contains three economic superpowers: the US, the EU (without the UK) and China. These generated about 60 per ce... Wed, 13:46: RT @ProfMarkElliott: .@BillCashMP is wrong to suggest that the UK Government acted unlawfully in agreeing an Article 50 extension with the... Wed, 13:48: RT @PabloPerezA: .@MichelBarnier to @Nigel_Farage: "No one in Brussels is trying to steal Brexit from you. (...). It is not Brussels that... Wed, 13:53: RT @chrisgreybrexit: Presumably he is drafting one article in which he backs the deal and another in which he doesn't https://t.co/OzVGMwSP... Wed, 15:04: RT @Mij_Europe: @eucopresident ...
The March edition of the email newsletter for Gateshead Liberal Democrats was published earlier this week. Issues covered include a report back from Lib Dem spring conference, campaigning for the local elections and a request for our next litter pick, this time in Bensham on Saturday. You can read the newsletter on this link.
The Guardian has a breakdown of the indicative votes last night, and a tool so that you can find out how your MP voted. First of all, the indicative vote process is very much to be welcomed. It should have happened a lot earlier and been repeated at regular intervals IMHO. We are seeing a preferential voting system of sorts here – there will hopefully be a further "second round" process next Monday. Last night's vote showed the Customs Union and the People's Vote option emerging as front-runners. I think we can be optimistic that this is the beginning of ...
Last night in the House, something novel took place. MPs were given ballot papers containing eight motions. They were to vote Aye or Nay to each of them; they could vote for or against as many as they wished. The results were then read out in the normal way. None of the motions managed a majority. This presents us with an interesting dilemma. May's deal has been voted down, twice; last night, no deal was trounced (240 majority against), as was revocation of Article 50; Any form of EEA/EFTA lost, worse than expected; a second referendum and remaining in a ...
Now, I am not the sort of person that hurls toast and marmalade at the radio every time a politician trots onto the Today programme and proceeds to make a claim of dubious validity, however, yesterday morning (Wednesday 27 March), there was a momentary lapse in my usually calm demeanour. I had just heard Jacob Rees-Mogg say that his signature has been added to the petition to revoke Article 50. How does he know this? Does somebody with access to the data, feed confidential information to members of parliament? Another way to "know" that somebody had submitted a signature in ...
Social media – and Twitter in particular – has a tendency to make us think that we must have an opinion on everything. From whatever happened that day to a political debate that seemingly sprung out of nowhere, the platforms are designed to enable our desire to be heard. This isn't a phenomenon specific to [...] The post When politicians get too opinionated for our good... appeared first on Radix.
Posted by Marie Le Conte on
Radix
I came across this graphic recently and I must say that I scratched my head over the FUN one:- In my day as a Sefton Councillor we didn't have a Department for Fun. How times change, but hang on what Fun is the Council actually providing? Well the recent council tax bill is very far from being fun:-(( Also, how jolly is the Cabinet Member who has Fun in their portfolio? And what about how the council is assessed for the level of fun it provides? Are all wards in the Borough meeting the minimum Fun criteria? It's a funny ...
I was tempted this morning just to post a GIF of somebody banging their head on a desk as my final comment on the Brexit farce currently running in the Westminster theatre known as the House of Commons. Last night MPs voted on eight different solutions to how we might move forward on Brexit. It might well be that as the cliff edge approaches one of these options might squeak through, but if it is anything but May's deal or no deal, the chances of legislation being approved to implement it would be slim. In chess terms we are now ...
On Tuesday, Shropshire Council announced a consultation on huge cuts in bus services. For Ludlow, the headline is that the 701 town bus serving the east side of town will be cut back from a half hour service to a 45-minute service. There are no plans for changes to the 722 park and ride service. No cuts are planned to the out of town routes from Ludlow to Kidderminster (292) and to Knighton (740). The Minsterley 435 service to Shrewsbury and the Lugg 490 to Leominster and Hereford do not receive direct subsidy from Shropshire Council so are unaffected by ...
Vince Cable says that a shifting centre of gravity signals an option that MPs can't put down Yesterday evening's Indicative Votes in the House of Commons have showed that significant support has shifted towards giving the people the final say on Brexit. [Infogram courtesy of bbc.co.uk] The confirmatory referendum received more support than Theresa May's deal and was the most popular option on the order paper. Commenting, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said: "As anticipated, the Commons has not produced an absolutely clear way forward, but it is clearer where the centre of gravity now is. "What is ...
Good morning, gentle readers! As part of our experimentation with the press releases feature, we're going to try something old, and something new. We'll revert to catching up with the day's releases at the end of the day, but instead of leaving the overnight embargoed releases until the end of the day, I'm going to try to get them to you first thing, whilst they're still fresh, so to speak... Lib Dems lead debate to end fracking The Liberal Democrats will today lead a debate in the House of Commons calling for an end to fracking because of its adverse ...
Responding to the National Audit Office report revealing that two years into the strategy, minsters have not yet developed detailed proposals for their goal of getting one million more disabled people into work by 2027, Liberal Democrat DWP Spokesperson Christine Jardine said:"Quite frankly I'm unsurprised by these findings, which simply add to the mounting stack of evidence showing that the DWP is not fit for purpose. "It's shameful that the department responsible for monitoring work capability is incapable of producing a plan so they can reach their own targets. They boast about how many disabled people are now in work, ...
The Liberal Democrats will today lead a debate in the House of Commons calling for an end to fracking because of its adverse impact on the environment and its incompatibility with tackling the climate crisis. Liberal Democrat Climate Change Spokesperson Wera Hobhouse, who is leading the backbench debate, is also expected to warn the Conservative Government's proposed changes to planning permission for fracking sites would deprive local authorities of their "historic rights of self-determination." The debate comes hot on the heels of the #FridaysForFuture movement which saw Swedish student Greta Thunberg inspire hundreds of thousands of school pupils across the ...
