Yet again I was in the Lib Dem office in Consett, printing yet more Focuses. I am now in the happy position of having produced all the literature we are planning for my own ward. More time to concentrate on the target wards.
Just as Whickham eFocus no. 115 was published, the Lib Dem team in Pelaw and Heworth were publishing the ward eFocus, no. 7. In this edition: Paul Diston chosen to be Lib Dem's candidate in Pelaw and Heworth Have your say on the 20 mph zone for Heworth and Leam Lane Lib Dems oppose Labour's plans for tolls on the Tyne's bridges Council Tax - Gateshead still charges the most! You can read the
Just published, eFocus for the Whickham area, edition 115: plans for tolls on the Redheugh, Swing and Tyne Bridges; Whickham Post Office update; Review of 20mph scheme; Chiropractor opens in Swalwell; Fairs in Whickham and Sunniside; Call to scrap Council News magazine; Dunston Hill School planning applicaiton expected; Brownfield sites left unused while houses built on countryside. You can
Lib Dems: Stop and search is not the answer Responding to the announcement that Police in England and Wales will be given greater stop and search powers to tackle rising knife crime, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said: Yet again, the Tories are trying to tackle knife crime on the cheap. It won't work. More random, suspicion-less Stop and Searches, carried out disproportionately on people from BAME communities, are not the answer. They will not only consume police time and erode trust in the police, but have little impact in actually preventing people carrying knives. What we really ...
Here's my latest news roundup, in which I cheer or jeer the week's events. Cheers for Zuzana Čaputová, the anti-corruption activist who has been elected the first female president of Slovakia. She also happens to be liberal and pro-EU - so much for the narrative that Europe is turning rightwards. Cheers for the Victoria & Albert Museum in Dundee, which has welcomed half a million visitors since opening in September last year - far more than it had expected. Jeers for the breathtaking hypocrisy behind Boris Johnson's cynical support for the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement. Fortunately, Boris has overreached himself ...
Given the Hugos, and the fact that I'm in the middle of two very long books, this has been a sparse month... Plays: 1 (YTD 1) λ1 sf (non-Who): 3 (YTD 15) ι1 κ1 μ1 Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD 4) Present Danger, ed. Eddie Robson 1,500 pages (YTD 11,000) 1/5 (YTD 12/36) by non-male writers (μ1) 2/5 (YTD 4/36) by PoC (ι1, κ1) Reading now A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot Combat Magicks, by Steve Cole Coming soon (perhaps): Troll Bridge, by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan ...
More than six million people have now signed the online petition to Revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit — by far the most supported official petition that the government has ever received. The petition is due to be debated in Parliament tomorrow (Monday), though the government has already declared that it will ignore its call. [...]
Sun 31st
13:15
Shropshire Council's almost exclusively male cabinet needs an equalities champion to close the counc...
Council leader Peter Nutting reshuffled his cabinet last week. There is only one woman among 16 portfolio holders and deputy portfolio holders. It is hardly a surprise then that data published by the government last week show that Shropshire has one of the biggest gender pay gaps of any council. Women earn 18% less than men in the council. Only 11 of 287 English councils have bigger gender pay gaps than Shropshire Council according to the Government. A local council champion was appointed in the cabinet reshuffle. The male dominated cabinet now needs an equalities champion to drive a reduction ...
When I was growing up people used to refer to a "crime" known as walking down the street in London while being black. People from BAME communities were disproportionately targeted fro stop and search and the like by the Police. Their concerns were not taken seriously. Twenty years ago the Macpherson Report into the stabbing of Stephen Lawrence found that London's Metropolitan Police were "institutionally racist." A BBC report for its 20th anniversary showed that some think that is still the case. So it's troubling, if unsurprising, that the Tory Government in power 20 years on thinks that the appropriate ...
Sat, 12:56: RT @jeannette_ng: Whenever someone disses Mary Sues, I think about how Tolkien and his wife Edith are buried under their middle earth OC na... Sat, 14:18: RT @richardpbacon: I honestly think Radio 4 should have a moratorium on interviewing Ian Duncan Smith and David Davis about Brexit. They mi... Sat, 14:21: RT @pmdfoster: So @tconnellyRTE has written some top things about #Brexit and Ireland, but none better than this...John Bercow should print... Sat, 14:40: RT @NellJenda: It was great fun altogether. We even got a bit of spring sunshine! https://t.co/jY1rL1DXFE Sat, 14:48: This is glorious. @Andy_Wilson1 and @AndyParkWilson ...
A tribute to Scott Walker, who died this week. But what is it about? Jon Dennis tries to explain: lastic Palace People is from Scott 2, the most commercially successful of the four revered solo albums Walker released between 1967 and 1969. This music is not rock, but it's effortlessly cool. It was in many ways quite unlike anything else produced at the time. John Franz, who had produced the Walker Brothers, now brought in orchestral arranger Wally Stott. Together they created the lush, expansive soundscapes in which Walker's sonorous baritone could luxuriate. Not rock - but Plastic Palace People ...
On Friday, the Department for Trade published an impact assessment for the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA). As a European Union member, the UK is part of 40 trade agreements. However, so far the UK have only signed 8 continuity trade deals for if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal.Responding to the statement, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Tom Brake said:"Today, at one minute past 11pm, was supposed to be Trade Deal Day for Liam Fox - the day he would roll-over all our EU trade deals. "This was the day when his vision of a buccaneering Britain ...
Responding to the announcement that Police in England and Wales will be given greater stop and search powers to tackle rising knife crime, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said:"Yet again, the Tories are trying to tackle knife crime on the cheap. It won't work. "More random, suspicion-less Stop and Searches, carried out disproportionately on people from BAME [Black and Minority Ethnic] communities, are not the answer. They will not only consume police time and erode trust in the police, but have little impact in actually preventing people carrying knives. "What we really need is more community police officers ...
Congratulations to Hounslow Liberal Democrats on a fun and well-organised quiz last night, marred only by...
I was first elected to Gateshead Council in 1987, taking my seat from the Conservatives who have since ceased to exist in any credible sense in the borough. Having now been elected 9 times over the past 32 years, I've decided it is not yet time for me to retire! As of 2nd May, I will be the joint longest serving member of Gateshead! So I am asking the good people of Whickham South and Sunniside
Sun 31st
10:46
For Transgender Day of Visibility - Scottish Lib Dems stand up for trans people's rights
Today is the annual Transgender Day of Visibility. It comes at a time when trans people and particularly trans women face daily attacks in the media just for being who they are. Last month, Scottish Lib Dems passed a motion calling for reform of the Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for trans people to get new birth certificates, for all Lib Dem politicians to be robust in their support of trans people and for the media to be more responsible in their reporting. After all, there is a certain irony in the biggest media outlets in the land ...
Sun 31st
10:46
Boris Johnson and Michael Gove must account for their role in Vote Leave's law-breaking
So the Sunday papers have caught up with Vote Leave's admission of guilt for law-breaking during the 2016 referendum campaign, and are starting to ask awkward questions. The key questions of course involves those members (and past members) of Her Majesty's Government who were prominent in that campaign. What exactly did they know? What level of accountability can be applied to them? And does their association with this wrong-doing make them unfit for high office? The Observer reports that Conservative leadership candidates Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in particular, are facing growing calls to account for this illegal behaviour by ...
My first election leaflet was printed on Friday though I need to go back to our office to finish printing the Sunniside edition. That is probably a job for later today, as is folding the ones already printed. Friday also saw me printing for Birtley and Lobley Hill and Bensham wards. Fortunately, we took a big delivery of paper recently! The pile on the right is for Lobley Hill and Bensham,
The latest polling for Lord Ashcroft, looking at the big political spaces there are for potential new parties, or existing ones to grow, repeats the picture...
Nick Seaborn, the Lib Dem candidate in Lobley Hill and Bensham, organised a litter pick yesterday in Windmill Hill Park. Nick is young, keen and hands-on. He organised a great event that saw 21 sacks of litter collected by local residents and Lib Dem members. Nick is definitely up for the battle with Labour in the ward!
Originally posted on Jonathan Fryer: Last night, Beaconsfield Conservative Association passed a vote of no confidence in their MP, Dominic Grieve, former Attorney General and articulate proponent of a new referendum to extract Britain from its Brexit impasse. A video secretly filmed at the meeting and publicised in tomorrow's Sunday Times shows Mr Grieve patiently...
Welcome to my special Facebook Messenger service for Liberal Democrats. Sign up and you will get one piece of high-quality content a week(-ish) that's suitable for sharing on Facebook to help get the party's key messages out. You just sign up via Facebook Messenger and then you'll get the messages appearing in your Messenger inbox with a simple link through to sharing a piece of content. Tap, tap and bingo! Our messages get read by more people. Sign up with Facebook Messenger here: Alternatively, go to this link (you'll need to have Facebook Messenger on the device you are using ...
OK, let me explain. I blogged recently about the anti-Brexit / pro-European Facebook page I run that had reached 1.4 million people in a month (it's has since ticked up to 1.5 million). Well, a month or two ago a message came in via the page from a curator at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, in Copenhagen, asking for any anti-Brexit placards we had from the London marches. It was for an exhibition, Europa Endlos, that is now open here in the Danish capital. Thankfully, in my brief Marie Kondo-inspired brush with decluttering I had spared the various placards that my partner and ...
Stanley BaldwinOne idea that keeps floating around the Brexit debate is the possibility of some form of Government of National Unity (GNU) being formed to somehow sort out the mess. It's not an absurd idea, especially if you're of the view that the UK is currently in a major constitutional and political crisis (with a possible economic one just around the corner) that can only be solved by radical means. Previous crises have triggered previous forms of national government such as the coalition that arose during the First World War and continued after it, the MacDonald-Baldwin National Government of 1931 ...
