Lib Dems: We must reject violence in Northern Ireland Responding to reports that journalist Lyra McKee has been killed during violence in Londonderry, Liberal Democrat Northern Ireland spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said: I never met Lyra McKee but by all accounts she was a young woman of great talent, courage and humanity. These are all talents that we need now more than ever so we should all mourn her passing. My condolences go to all her family and friends who are having to come to terms with their loss today. Unlike Lyra, those who bring violence to the streets of Northern ...
Published this week, edition 8 of the Pelaw and Heworth eFocus, covering Paul Diston's local election campaign. You can read it on this link.
It's time to join the daddy of psychogeographers, Iain Sinclair, on another walk. This time, says the blurb on YouTube, he follows Vincent Van Gogh's daily walk to work from his lodgings in Hackford Road, Brixton, to the gallery in Southampton Street, Covent Garden, where he worked as an art dealer. We go inside the house in Hackford Road, which is currently being restored by Livia Wang of San Mei Gallery. The film coincides with the Tate Britain exhibition Van Gogh and Britain, which runs until 11 August.
When you are young you feel the built world around you is permanent and you are ephemeral. If you are lucky you live long enough to realise that, while you go doggedly on, that world is in flux. Take the two primary schools I attended in Hemel Hempstead. I have found a photograph and a drawing of the old Boxmoor school and put them on this blog. But I have never seen a photograph of Fields End, which was one of celebrated concrete-and-glass schools that Hertfordshire County Council built after the war. And what does the photograph above, which I ...
Mary Colwell says a GCSE in Natural History could be the first step in a revival of nature in our education system. Whenever I listen to Brain of Britain on Radio 4 my sense of inadequacy grows as the programme progresses. I simply don't know that many facts. In March, I caught the first heat in the quest to find the greatest knowledge-guru of 2019 and I barely got off the starting blocks. Maybe I could have answered one or two questions given more time, but I can't recall fast enough. I hugely admire those who have this kind of ...
The end of another week with Lord Bonkers. I have the feeling that, however things turn out, the old boy will continue to thrive. Sunday You don't have to be the Wise Woman of Wing to have noticed that the Brexit negotiations are going badly. I have chartered a charabanc to take the villagers on the great march in London, but by the time you read this... To be candid, I haven't the faintest idea what will have happened by the time you read this. As to what Brexit will mean for Rutland, I can foresee only an outbreak of ...
Second paragraph of third chapter:This was perhaps quite a far-sighted move on my father's part, as my new experience would certainly bring me down to earth with a bump and put me squarely face to face with the realities of life and death on a daily basis. My very first well-remembered job was to carry the wrapped body of a three-year-old child, the victim of an accidental drowning in a local canal, to the hospital mortuary.Yet another one of the Doctor Who books rushed out for the 2013 anniversary (in this case a revision and expansion of a 2011 book ...
The most important reason why electing Liberal Democrat councillors and Mayors matters is because of the direct difference they can and make in their communities. A second reason is that having a strong grassroots campaigning network is one of the distinctive edges that the Liberal Democrats have when up against other parties whose electoral appeal overlaps somewhat with those voters the Lib Dems are pitching for. Parties, that is, such as the Greens, the Women's Equality Party and Change UK/The Independent Group. However cooperative or competitive the relations between the Liberal Democrats and such others, the strong the Lib Dems ...
Ambulance came to pick her up this morning: she's developed an infection on top of her broken ribs/sternum/cracked vertebra. They're going to be keeping her in at least overnight :( [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Earlier this year I was asked to pen a piece responding to the excellent research project into political party membership, What People Want To See In Parties Today. Here is what I had to say... One of the major 20th century contributions to economics - both to economic theory and to controversy over economic theory - was Paul Samuelson's revealed preference theory. It rests on the idea that you can work out what people really prefer by looking at the choices they make - and to extend the idea, that the best way of knowing what people really prefer therefore ...
Marriages often go through a mid-life crisis, but in truly Gallic fashion, in Olivier Assayas's wry drama Doubles Vies, so do spouses' relationships with their respective lovers too. The setting — apart from a lyrical interlude in the Midi — is the literary scene in Paris, a world in which a book editor (Guillaume Canet) is [...]
Thu, 12:56: Charlotte Bront�'s hair found in ring on Antiques Roadshow, say experts https://t.co/HNt9FmyIj8 Crumbs! Thu, 16:05: Technology can't prevent hard border in Ireland if Brexit means customs controls, firms told https://t.co/eg4i4Qrplw Well, strike me pink. Thu, 17:11: RT @roisiningle: "The word 'cis' is short for 'cisgender', the dictionary definition of which is 'denoting or relating to a person whose se... Thu, 18:35: Fanny Hill, by John Cleland, and Candide, by Voltaire https://t.co/cIIcGPU9cC Thu, 19:02: RT @JP_Biz: Two important Brexit interventions in NI this week. 1) High profile Nancy Pelosi comments on US-UK trade 2) Lower profile comme... Thu, 20:48: ...
Earlier this month, I wrote the following for Campaigns & Elections about the prospects for The Independent Group as it was then known. Here is a lightly updated version. British politics has managed to feature just about everything other than competence in the last couple of years. It is therefore not a real surprise that this year has also seen the creation of two new political parties – a splinter from Ukip, including former Ukip leader Nigel Farage (The Brexit Party), and the political party in-formation initially known as The Independent Group (TIG) and now as Change UK. Unlike the ...
Of all the issues which face the people of the World by far the most important is climate change. The planet is on a countdown to fundamental changes in our eco-systems that could well mean the extinction of our species ... Continue reading →
Hello! I'm Mark Pack, author of 101 Ways To Win An Election, and the maintainer of the largest database of national voting intention polls in the UK, stretching back to 1943. Here are the latest general election voting intention figures from each of the pollsters currently active UK, including ones featuring Change UK, previously The Independent Group (CUK) and the Brexit Party (BXP). Where pollsters both ask voting intention questions both with and without Change UK, both of those results feature below. (Scroll down to the end of this post if you'd like to receive news of new polls by ...
I admit it. I'm an 'evil landlord'. Well not exactly 'evil' you understand but that sometimes how I am made to feel by the present government and Federal Conference when it passes some other motion or so which castigates me and many other Liberal Democrats who happen to be landlords in the private and commercial rental sector. Renting property is a business like any other. I provide a service for people who cannot afford to own their own home but need to be able to rent something decent. Don't even start complaining that UK landlords are making it difficult to ...
The Liverpool Echo has the article on its website – see link below:- Well as a driver I've always kept out of them but now I'm also a cyclist it's apparent that some drivers stop within Bike Boxes. The photo above is of the junction at Kenyons Lane/Northway in Lydiate as just one example of a 'Bike Box' and I wonder what the experiences of local drivers and cyclists are of using them? With thanks to Keith Page for the lead to this posting
Today I am unashamedly using my blog to promote my first published novel. When Morgan Sheckler is elected Mayor of the Cardiff Capital Region in Wales he finds himself at odds with his own staff, not just because of his policies but also because of his brash, bullying manner. Sheckler immediately sets his sights on dismantling plans for a new power plant in the region -- a move that puts him on collision course with some unsavoury American backers who will do anything necessary to have it built. Caught in the middle is Dawn Highcliffe, Sheckler's director of development, who ...
At this time on a Friday morning, you'd normally be expecting to see Tom Arms' latest Observations of an Ex Pat. Yesterday afternoon, I saw an email come in from him entitled Broken, and assumed it was his piece for this week. But in fact, it was a message saying that he's broken his arm and is in hospital. I'm sure that you would all want to join me in wishing Tom a speedy recovery. Tom, all the very best to you. Hope you are home and comfortable very soon. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and ...
Passover - the Jewish festival that begins this evening (Friday) – is first and foremost about "freedom": freedom from slavery in Egypt. The Jews had come to Egypt a few generations before our story begins, under the protection of Joseph of the multicoloured dreamcoat, but had grown too "numerous" for comfort. So the Egyptians enslaved [...] The post A Passover parable about freedom versus community appeared first on Radix.
