The Manchester and Milford Railway, says Wikipedia, was a Welsh railway company, intended to connect the industrial areas of Northwest England with a deep-water port on Milford Haven, giving an alternative to the Port of Liverpool. Its object was to be achieved through linking existing railways, and the only new track the company built was between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen in rural West Wales. That line closed in 1965, and this video sets out to find what remains of four tunnels on the line.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

 

Posted by Stephen Tall on Stephen Tall

North Macedonia is country number 65, and whilst for some of my FIRC colleagues, I am a mere amateur, my goal of visiting more countries than I have birthdays is well on target. But why Skopje, and why for just thirty-three hours? Well, it comes down to those frequent flyer miles and the best means of using them. The best connection for my next destination is through Istanbul, but I didn't want the hassle of a Turkish visa, thus somewhere with an early, but not too early, flight to Istanbul allowing the connection to be made. My hotel was on ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy

Andrew Adonis - Remain ultra turned Corbyn loyalist - has done his best to upset all sides recently, but he knows his stuff when it comes to railways. Yesterday he gave a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on 'Reversing Beeching'. The first half dealt with HS2 - a project I find hard to love and one that may not long survive the arrival of a new Conservative prime minister. Reading the recent Independent article by Jon Stone, however, I suspect it is one I should try to love. Certainly, Stone makes a better case for HS2 than ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Lord Wallace of Tankerness - the former Scottish deputy first minister and Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland Jim Wallace - is interviewed by The Press and Journal. He suggests that Boris Johnson becoming Conservative leader would cause problems for the party in Scotland and its leader Ruth Davidson: "I think the Scottish Tories will have a problem. Ruth especially will have a credibility problem. In that final debate she did in the referendum she basically called him a liar. "I suppose in politics today you can actually stand up two years later and say that he is god's ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

John Hemming's former constituency of Birmingham Yardley has a new Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary candidate (PPC).

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Liberal Democrat membership is now at a record high, having passed 105,480. What might this mean for the Davey vs Swinson contest?

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

The Liberal Democrats are delighted to announce that the party now has a record number of members following its successes in the recent local and European elections. There are now over 105,480 full members of the party, able to vote in the upcoming leadership contest, with 20,000 of those joining since last months local elections.Commenting on the number of people that have joined, and continue to join the Liberal Democrats, Leader Vince Cable said:"It is a sign of the real momentum that our party has at this time that we have exceeded our highest ever number of members. "People from ...

Posted by Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats
Sat 8th
14:52

In praise of Vueling

A few days before Jane was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, we'd booked a holiday in Barcelona. It's somewhere neither of us has been. It was meant to be a sign that things were getting back...Continue Reading The post In praise of Vueling appeared first on ten pence piece.

Posted by tim on ten pence piece

Second paragraph of third story ("Non-Zero Probabilities", by N.K. Jemisin): Then she starts the trip to work. She doesn't bike, though she owns one. A next-door neighbor broke an arm when her bike's front wheel came off in mid-pedal. Could've been anything. Just an accident. But still. I wrote some of these up at the time for the Hugos (novellas, novelettes, short stories), but this collection includes all of the short stories and novelettes, so that's three out of six short stories and five out of six novelettes which were new to me. It didn't change my personal judgement that ...

YouGov

I've been thinking about this for some time but my thoughts have brought to a head whilst listening to the semi-coherent ramblings of Sian Berry this morning on the Today programme. Sian is, apparently, the co-leader of the Green Party ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand, has the Guinness World Record for "steepest paved road over a continuous distance of more than ten metres".

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Sat 8th
11:00

My tweets

Fri, 14:02: RT @JoshuaRozenberg: Summonses against Boris Johnson quashed. Reasons to follow. Fri, 14:04: RT @davidallengreen: No sensible person could defend Johnson's falsehoods from a political or moral perspective. But that did not mean tha... Fri, 14:13: RT @SamuelStolton: Lady Ashton says that it "breaks her heart" to hear about the squabbling between Kosovo and Serbia as part of the Belgra... Fri, 14:13: RT @tom_nuttall: Former EU high rep Lady Ashton haranguing Serbian and Kosovan presidents at testy #GLOBSEC2019 debate. "Everyone knows you... Fri, 14:13: RT @milann_sk: Dispute between #Vucic and #Thaci on stage at #GLOBSEC2019 -- getting even more ...

On Thursday a short service was held at the Whickham War Memorial to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The Last Post was sounded. Residents were also joined by three soldiers attending a recruitment event in the village. A video of this event will follow shortly.

Posted by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace

Congratulations to all Lib Dems who have been honoured in the Queen's Birthday Honours today! Arise Sir Norman Lamb MP, awarded his knighthood for public and political service. Norman has been the MP for North Norfolk since 2001 and was one of the few that survived the cull in 2015. He is currently the party's Health spokesperson, and has for a long time spoken up for mental health, calling for equality of provision for patients and a better understanding of their needs. So far we haven't managed to spot anyone else in the list, but there may well be others, ...

Posted by The Voice on Liberal Democrat Voice

With so many Tory leadership contenders advocating us leaving the EU on 31 October with a no-deal, and with very few alternatives on the table, it is worth reminding ourselves of the consequences of such a course for the rest of us. The Independent features analysis by the GMB Trade Union, which finds that the cost of a family's weekly shop could rocket by more than £800 a year in these circumstances. They claim that the bill for a typical supermarket basket of goods would increase by £15.61 a week - 17 per cent - if Britain was forced to ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

Long-time readers will have noticed my increasing caution about congratulating politicians over the receipt of honours given how often the honours are for 'turning up and doing an ok job for a decent number of years (and you can keep it even if you turn bad)'. Those politicians who are most deserving of honours are frequently those who get it for activity outside politics, and there have often been truly impressive achievements rightly honoured that way. But just sometimes what someone has done inside politics is more than simply do a job in a profession that is lucky enough to ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Maghull Station buses back in the 1970's I'm told that as a result of the recent Bus Review by Merseytravel in Sefton, the following alterations are proposed from 1st September: * New service 32A introduced to offer a peak hour service for South and West Maghull to Maghull Station and Westway/The Square. * Service 32/33 hours extended to run of an evening and Sunday. * Peak hour service 34/34A to be withdrawn due to low usage following the opening of Maghull North Station. Anyone spotted any other local implications on Maghull/Lydiate from this review please let me know. Here's a ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Part of Sefton's coastline at Crosby The Liverpool Echo has the article on its website – see link below Now for all of you out there who think I have a downer on the Labour Party here's a positive story I'm happy to promote. Firstly, I should say that one of my big issues with Labour on Merseyside has always been their lack of environmental/green credentials. You only have to look at the troubles in both Knowsley and Liverpool Councils where building on parks and green spaces has actually been promoted by Labour. Their approach to Sefton's Local Plan ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

Shropshire Council's conservation team have called for a redesign of the development of five detached dwellings in the orchard of Foldgate Farm on Foldgate Lane because the applicants have not followed advice given before the application was submitted (19/01940/FUL). Ecologists at the council have called for the scheme to be rejected for failing to meet local and national policy requirements. The council's tree team have called for the scheme to be rejected or revised because it ignores pre-application advice and does not comply with local and national policies. That is a hefty set of criticisms. The plans will need to ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington
eUKhost

Residents have drawn to my attention broken tiles on the pavement at the junction of Hawkhill and east side of Blackness Avenue near the traffic lights. I reported this to the City Council's Roads Maintenance Partnership and have now been advised as follows : "The Road Maintenance inspector has raised an order for the tactile paving slabs to be replaced."