It's been a pleasant evening in our small, but perfectly formed, village. There's been beer, some splendid homemade sausage rolls, and a quiz (our team won!). Sadly, the real world has a nasty way of reasserting itself... Brake: Yet another desperate move from a failing PM Pupil Decelopment Grant Access extended to support more families Breakdown of talks with Corbyn signals closing time for May's Deal Brake: Yet another desperate move from a failing PM Responding to the news that the PM has written to the EU calling for a short extension of Article 50, already rejected by the EU, ...
Fri 5th
22:24
Voting intention opinion polls scorecard: three pollsters now show Conservatives slipping
re are the latest general election voting intention figures from each of the main pollsters currently polling in the UK, including ones featuring The Independent Group (TIG). Where pollsters both ask a voting intention question with TIG and one without, both of those results feature below. New in this week is a YouGov poll which shows a small narrowing in the Conservative lead. That now makes three pollsters in a row showing the Conservative position slipping – YouGov, Delta Poll and Opinium – even though they show a range from Labour five points ahead to one point behind. (Scroll down ...
Fri 5th
20:43
This is everything you always wanted to know about Once Upon a Time in the West and a great deal mor...
So says Mark Kermode - and he should know, Christopher Grayling? No, Christopher Frayling. That's alright then.
The first Swindon Spring Festival will take place across the town between 6 and 19 May, and this blog's hero Richard Jefferies will play a prominent part. Dr Will Abberley, says The Swindonian, will give the first Richard Jefferies Lecture, making the case for Jefferies as a pioneer for modern nature writing. And the Jefferies museum at Coate Water will host many other events as part of the festival. You can find full details on the Swindon Spring Festival website.
The Times Red Box asked MPs from all parties how they are going to try to switch off from Brexit. As if they actually could. I mean, that cliff edge is a week and four hours away at the time of writing. The article has a serious point though. There is so much strain on MPs at the moment. If four in ten of the general population, according to the Mental Health Foundation, are suffering from some sort of Brexit-related anxiety, how much worse is it going to be for MPs in such a febrile environment. It is not a ...
Fri 5th
17:00
Lib Dem Lords vs Brexit Dick Newby calls for unprecedented measures to deal with unprecedented colla...
Yesterday's farce in the House of Lords reminded me of the sorts of shenanigans that used to go on in student politics. Basically, Tory Brexiteer peers spent 8 hours arguing about the timetable motion to consider the Cooper Letwin Bill compelling the Prime Minister to seek an extension to Article 50 in the event of a looming no deal deadline. Given that the cliff edge comes next Friday night, the need for speed is pretty darned clear. For 8 hours, the Tories filibustered. There were around 11 votes in all and on every occasion the Brexiteers lost by a large ...
Yesterday, Vince went to Yeovil to launch the party's final push for the local elections to be held on May 2nd. He visited accommodation for homeless people opened by the Lib Dem council in South Somerset. Meeting residents and staff @BCHAWellbeing Fair View in Yeovil – a fabulous example of a Lib Dem run council addressing homelessness by developing 11 units of temporary accommodation for vulnerable and homeless families to keep them safe and out of B&Bs pic.twitter.com/x0SCmwAMkE — Vince Cable (@vincecable) April 4, 2019 He spoke to the local paper. From the County Gazette: Mr Cable said he wasn't ...
Today marks the 4th anniversary of shared parental leave - one of my proudest achievements as Employment Relations Minister. Shared Parental Leave is good for children, good for families and good for equality in the workplace. I was so happy that last year when Gabriel was born, Duncan and I were able to share our parental leave and take it in turns to get to know our newest family member. I got to help Gabriel figure out how to roll over and sit up, and by the time Duncan took over he was busy weaning Gabriel onto solid food. It ...
Next Wednesday, UK PM Theresa May will go to an emergency EU summit where she is expected to ask for an extension of Article50 beyond the current cut-off date, 12 April. Whereas her personal preference is for just a short delay to Brexit, during which in principle her negotiated deal could get through Parliament on [...]
It's 4 years today since one of the best achievements of the Lib Dems in Government started – the right of parents to decide between themselves who takes leave when they have a baby. Jo Swinson was the minister who made it happen and in a cracking thread on Twitter with some fantastic GIFs, she celebrates the anniversary. She recorded this video: Today is the 4th anniversary of Shared Parental Leave – one of my proudest achievements as Employment Relations Minister. SPL is good for families, good for children and good for equality in the workplace. What better way to ...
Like many people, I read the latest missive from the BBC to their employees with incredulity. As the Independent reports the head of news in the British Brexit Corporation has told his staff that they will face "appropriate" disciplinary action if they share personal views on politics - or other controversial subjects - on social media. This threat is believed to follow the outcry over a decision by Question Time to debate whether it was "morally right" for five-year-old children to learn about LGBT+ issues in school - sparking an angry reaction from several senior BBC employees on Twitter: BBC ...
Thu, 12:56: RT @EmporersNewC: Hello Mr Morgan, I've just seen this tweet. I don't know if you were out of the country at the time, but let me respect... Thu, 15:51: RT @almostadiary: @jonworth interesting article, remembering what you mentioned last August about @theresa_may actually caring about NI/the... Thu, 16:05: China's Influence Digs Deep Into Europe's Political Landscape - Bloomberg https://t.co/FFoGNLS2wa ...but it's not a... https://t.co/mNt1uq2eJu Thu, 17:40: RT @davidallengreen: If you can take warmth from the below, then do so. Please. But the cold fact remains that unless something exceptiona... Thu, 19:12: No. https://t.co/Q2JY9cr11n Thu, 19:51: RT @GuardianHeather: NEW ...
Fri 5th
10:54
What the Newport West by-election result tells us about the state of Labour, the Tories, Lib Dem and...
Political types tend to read way too much into by-election results. My all time favourite was a Labour pundit saying in the aftermath of the 2013 Eastleigh by-election that Labour were definitely going to win the 2015 general election because their 0.2% increase in vote share (to 9.8%) compared to 2010 demonstrated the unstoppable momentum of Ed Miliband's journey into Number 10. Yet they can still be interesting. I'll try and examine the result of yesterday's by-election in as level-headed a way as I can. For a start, I think Labour should be slightly worried about the result – but ...
Manchester Lib Dems have launched a local manifesto calling for a reverse of Labour's 22% Council Tax increase for the least well off in Manchester. The 2018 report of the APPG on Land Value Capture http://bit.ly/APPG-LVC-Report-1 concluded that: Council Tax ...is overdue for replacement with a fairer system of property taxation. The IPPR report on council tax reform notes: "...leaving council tax unreformed is becoming ever more unsustainable. Local authorities across the country are increasingly cash strapped as a consequence of government cuts to their core grant funding and limits on their ability to raise funds through council tax ...
It's been an unusually hectic week on Planet Bureaucrat, but I did manage to find time to join Ros at the launch of a new exhibition at the National Archives on Wednesday evening. In many ways, it takes reminding that, just thirty years ago, the two superpowers and their allies faced off across the centre of Europe, nuclear weapons blatantly targeted at each other's centres of population and industry. And, whilst by then, Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to reform the Soviet Union were interesting, there was little to suggest to most of us that the whole communist edifice was going to ...
Various points have been made regarding my critique of Proportional Representation (PR) from the standpoint of my 'Fuzzy Democracy', which I claim to be a superior way of measuring and aggregating opinion. In reply, I shall begin with points of principle. We are talking about the way - and by whom - a polity should [...] The post Why democracy needs to be fuzzier appeared first on Radix.
Three cheers for the voters of Slovakia. And a 21-gun salute for Zuzana Caputova, the new Slovak president and heroine of Western liberalism (or is it hero in this new gender-free pc world). Liberals—and everyone else—should cheer because Caputova—in stark contrast to just about every political campaign fought by anyone anywhere in the world—completely eschewed the populist rhetoric, character assassinations, name-calling, intimidatory chants, lies, xenophobia, racism, intolerance and personal attacks that are debasing democratic political systems everywhere. Instead of appealing to phobias and exclusivity, Caputova ran a campaign urging tolerance and inclusiveness. Slovakia has been good example of the depths ...
You can find the nominated candidates for the May 2nd 2019 West Berkshire Council elections here. You can find the nominated candidates for the contested May 2nd 2019 Parish and Town councils in West Berkshire here. Other details relevant to the elections are listed here. Advertisements
Residents recently contacted me about graffiti in Bankmill Road - see below : I am grateful to the City Council's Rapid Response Team who very promptly responded to my request to have the graffiti removed.
Only two by-elections this week, but one is a Parliamentary one: Newport West in Wales. The other is a Conservative defence on Norfolk County Council. Wroxham, Norfolk Stephen Heard stood for the Lib Dems, having finished second for the party last time in this ward – and second also the time before, though that time as an independent. Wroxham (Norfolk) result: CON: 55.7% (-3.2) LDEM: 23.9% (+4.0) GRN: 10.5% (+5.0) LAB: 9.9% (-0.8) Conservative HOLD. No UKIP (-5.0) as prev. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) April 4, 2019
Lib Dems: Govt must not shirk responsibility over loan charge Liberal Democrat MP Ed Davey has criticised the implementation of the the Loan Charge which is coming into force today. He has been the leading figure in the cross-party campaign against its introduction. Commenting on its introduction, Ed Davey said: My campaign to stop the abuse of power by the Treasury in how it has introduced the Loan Charge has now won huge cross-party support. The Chancellor must listen to Parliament: by applying the Loan Charge to past tax years, the Conservative Government has broken long-standing tax principles and in ...
