Back in 2017, Vince Cable called Donald Trump evil and racist. The love has not grown since then. Vince tweeted about Trump's imminent state visit: Visit of #Trump becoming nightmare for UK. He is no friend of Britain and enemy of our values and interests. #ClimateEmergency destroying #WTO trade system and warmongering with China and Iran End of #SpecialRelationship. — Vince Cable (@vincecable) June 2, 2019 Tomorrow this country will give Donald Trump the tightest standard of hospitality at our disposal. A state visit. The Queen will entertain someone who has insulted her granddaughter in law. That, of course, is ...
The Liberal Democrat leadership election has got off to a blistering start.We'll be looking at what the leadership candidates get up to each day during the week and once at the weekend. Here's a summary of Jo Swinson's weekend. There was a joint interview on Channel 4 with Ed Davey on Friday night. And then the first party leadership hustings in London, which have been recorded here. On Saturday there were hustings in Winchester. What a venue! Thank you to all our wonderful members who gave up on a sunny Saturday morning & came along to the hustings in Winchester ...
As rail replacement coaches have been a theme of the past week, here is a structure I first saw from one of the things on the way from Market Harborough to Bedford. Victoria Mills stands by the Nene on the edge of Wellingborough. It was never powered by the river, but grain was delivered to it by water until 1969. The building is still in use and forms part of a complex operated by Whitworths. But there is more to the area than that. I was surprised to find a small pleasure park on the other side of the river. ...
It's been a hectic weekend for the leadership candidates. Numerous media interviews, travelling across the country for three sets of hustings. It's a gruelling pace and there's two months to go. We're going to try and keep up with them every day during the leadership campaign, once at the weekend. The weekend kicked off on Friday night when the first hustings took pace in London. Watch here: And there was a joint interview on Channel 4 News. Yesterday it was on to Winchester "Lovely to be back here in #Winchester and so much to celebrate: the first @LibDems leadership election ...
You can now watch in full the first hustings from the contest between Jo Swinson and Edward Davey to succeed Vince Cable as leader of the Liberal Democrats.
It was a fantastic turnout this morning in Merton for some canvass training from me and then hitting the doors for Jenifer Gould in the Cannons Hill by-election.
It has been a humbling couple of weeks for Change UK. No seats won in the Euro elections after allegedly boasting that they were going to replace the Liberal Democrats. With Westminster polls now showing...Continue Reading The post Is it too early to write off Change UK? appeared first on ten pence piece.
There has not (yet?) been any public polling about the Liberal Democrat leadership race itself. However, we do have the YouGov Ratings which use polling (adjusted to be nationally representative) to show what the public things about various figures. Here is how the two who would be Vince Cable's successor compare with each other and with him: Have you heard of them? Vince Cable 79% Jo Swinson 31% Ed Davey 27% Positive opinion of them Vince Cable 17% Jo Swinson 9% Ed Davey 4% Net opinion (positive minus negative) of them Jo Swinson +2% Ed Davey -4% Vince Cable -16% ...
Sun 2nd
14:31
Three things: a coconut reliquary, cathedral doors and the Kangxi-Verbiest celestial sphere
I've been doing a bit of culture over the last few days. Anne and I went up to Utrecht on Thursday, which was a holiday, and took the Friday as well to look around the Catharijneconvent (which I will hope to write up separately some time). And yesterday I went on another historic walk around Leuven organised by Leuven Leisure. (Of about a dozen participants, I was the only one who wasn't Dutch.) Here are three things that I found intriguing. 1) The Coconut Reliquary of Münster. (Picture from Münster cathedral) The Catharijneconvent's current temporary exhibition is of treasures from ...
The leadership contest continues, and here's some brief thoughts following on from my large runners and lanes post about how things are going... The largest bit of news in the race is that Layla Moran will not be running. I think that's a pity, and there are many members who I think would have preferred [...]
On Twitter yesterday I listed the five albums I have played more than any other. Not my choice of the best or my current favourites, but the five I have played the most. No Secrets by Carly Simon made the list. I suppose if there were an event for albums by females singer-songwriters released in 1971, Carly Simon would win bronze while Joni Mitchell and Carole King disputed gold and silver for Blue and Tapestry respectively. These days I play Blue more than No Secrets, but I doubt it has made up the gap yet. No Secrets reminds me of ...
Sat, 12:56: Real stories (rather than Brexiteer fairy stories) from real UK businesses as collated by the CBI: https://t.co/rUOSiB7Kby Sat, 13:20: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); and book by Pierre Boulle https://t.co/xH1oAVw8bT Sat, 13:30: RT @gavreilly: Casual reminder that the last time Boris Johnson visited Dublin as a member of HMG, his own civil servants had to pre-advise... Sat, 13:48: You will perhaps not be surprised by the answer to the question. https://t.co/F28XkMiSgw Sat, 14:32: Started Cycle with #cyclemeter at 14:32, on a new route, see https://t.co/3wozZYu4g3, Cyclemeter will speak your replies to me. Sat, 14:48: There's Nothing ...
After the European election results were announced, the Brexit Party demanded a seat at the negotiations with the EU over how we leave. The same demand has just been made by Trump, in his capacity as self-appointed leader of America First. This all strikes me as rather odd. The Brexit Party demands a No Deal Brexit. So what is there to negotiate about, at least in terms of how we leave? And if we
One of our neighbours turned 16 last night. He had a party. His mum, who I'd met earlier while we were walking our dogs that there was going to be no alcohol at this party. As I listened to a large group of teenagers making a hell of a racket in our street at 11pm last night, it seemed that they had taken no notice. Anyway, I took advantage of that disturbance to finally do something I had been meaning to do for ages. For a wee while now, a growing number of Lib Dems have put an orange diamond ...
Donald Trump is on his way to the UK and, inevitably, he has decided to mix it up a bit before he gets here, arguing that we should send Nigel Farage in to debate Brexit, opt for a no-deal exit and keep our £39 billion and, of course endorsing Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister. What puzzles me most about the Boris phenomenon is not his popularity - everybody loves a buffoon - but why so many Tory MPs, who have worked closely with him, are prepared to back him for the leadership of their party. His record as ...
How proud am I of being Vice President of a party that's sending no less than 16 MEPs to Brussels! I look forward to working with them all on increasing the diversity of our Party. We now have 2 BAME MEPs – Dinesh Dhamija and Shaffaq Mohammed – brilliant role models for all and particularly for the candidates who'll benefit from the new Racial Diversity Campaign mentoring and training currently being set up by Sarah Yong, Arfan Bhatti and Anood Al-Samerai. I have no doubt that Roderick Lynch, Chair of the LDCRE (Liberal Democrat Campaign for Racial Equality) will also ...
It's a nice problem for a local party to have: what to do with some new Liberal Democrat members. Here are some ways to make the most of that opportunity.
Being a Notts lad with previous generations of my family working at Notts pits (but having not lived there myself since 1964) and a life-long trade unionist the 1984/85 miners strike has always interested me, yet strangely I knew little of it on the ground in Notts. I was a trade union officer in the civil service on Merseyside from around 1979 until 2013 so the work and conditions of my members was so far removed from that of coal miners to be almost of another world. Obviously, I recall the miners strike from my early days working for my ...
