It's a pleasure to see a sign like the one above at the entrance to an exhibition and rarer than it need be. Today was the 170th birthday of the New Walk Museum and there was lots going on there to celebrate it. I bought my mother a book from the Richard III Society stall and joined Leicester Civic Society, which is something I have long meant to do. But the purpose of my visit was to see the exhibition on the Mod scene in Leicester and Nottingham. Mods: Shaping a Generation runs until 30 June.
As is his right in a free country, Lord Bonkers is writing this diary backwards. I started it on Friday with Monday's entry, which means that Sunday appears on Saturday and Saturday will appear on Sunday. I think that is tolerably clear. Sunday I am not afraid to say I blubbed when I watched the fire at Notre Dame, but I soon recovered myself and ordered precautions to be taken at St Asquith's. The Revd Hughes was sprayed with fire-retardant chemicals and a party of Well-Behaved Orphans, armed with buckets of water, has been stationed in the rafters at every ...
The Liberal Democrat leadership election has so far failed to catch the imagination. In part that is because it has not received the media attention it deserves - the latest polls show we are one of four parties who attract the support of just under a quarter of the electorate. But it is also a reflection of the sudden restoration of our fortunes. As Stephen Bush said at the start of the contest:Jo Swinson and Ed Davey, her rival for the Liberal Democrat leadership, have several things in common, but the most important, for the purposes of the contest, is ...
The actor William Simons, best known for playing the amiably lazy Alf Ventress in Hearbeat, has died. He gets a mention on this blog because he was one of the first two actors I saw live on stage. He and Eric Duffy played the Ugly Sisters in the Watford Palace's Christmas 1966 production of Cinderella. I remember that it began with the two of them doing a silent comic scene on scooters - I had to be reassured that there was going to be talking. Before that Simons was a child star. He played Dinah Sheridan and Anthony Steel's son ...
Following news of Catherine Bearder's election as leader of the massively enlarged (yay!) Liberal Democrat group in the European Parliament comes news of her deputy: Cllr Porritt, who recently turned 32, is the youngest MEP of the 15-strong group. She enters into an all-woman leadership team, including Catherine Bearder as leader. The Belsize representative on Camden Coiuncil was only elected to the council in May last year, and has swiftly risen through the party's ranks. She said: "I am looking forward to being a voice for my Liberal Democrat colleagues and those who elected us, first and foremost on a ...
I've had a pretty good couple of years as a Lib Dem – in 2018 I was part of the team that produced a "shock" victory in South Cambs, going from 14/57 to 30/45 councillors, and last month I helped organise our Chelmsford campaign, where we went from 5 to 31 seats, the highest gain in the country. I know how to win elections. But 3 years ago I didn't. Richmond Park by-election was great for our party and the remainer cause, but it was also great personally for me, because I got to learn from the best. In December ...
Anne and I were in Rome last weekend, and saw a lot of lovely things. Some of them were astronomical, and rather caught my eye as a lapsed historian of science. The first was in the Galleria Spada, which we got a tour of on out first evening. It's an art museum most of whose collection was acquired by Cardinal Spada himself back in the 17th century. What caught my eye here was a gorgeous painting called "The Astronomers", by the sixteenth-century artist Niccolò Tornioli, dating from the 1640s. Because of the way oil paintings and photography don;'t really mix, ...
In all my wonderings about what Boris Johnson will do when he becomes prime minister, until very recently I hadn't considered the soft Brexit option at all. I sort of ruled it out, leading to a very narrow set of options for Johnson on Brexit. I will admit that this possibility was opened up to me by a Tory friend of mine, who feels this could be the road BoJo travels. "But won't the ERG object in the strongest possible terms?" I asked him. "They won't even know it's a soft Brexit," he said. Admittedly, I had to concede that ...
Fri, 12:32: RT @davidallengreen: Our Lord High Chancellor. https://t.co/ZfKIuSL94S Fri, 12:34: Good! https://t.co/ailzSjpnJb Fri, 12:52: RT @tconnellyRTE: BREAKING: Chancellor Merkel: "We made it very clear we wish to cooperate with the newly elected [British] prime minister.... Fri, 12:56: Great, must-read piece. https://t.co/IkaVsrp90j Fri, 13:39: Ruth Dudley Edwards believes in Good Boris, who will charm the lovable Irish into knowing their place. Personally,... https://t.co/F61mrYq4V6 Fri, 16:09: RT @adamfleming: Response by @EU_Commission to the idea that GATT 24 can be used for #Brexit https://t.co/QYVCgfUN0l Fri, 16:58: RT @CoppetainPU: I thought/hoped it would die away, but it's become headline news—the favourite to be ...
Tory leadership contenders must reverse school cuts Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran will today use a speech at the 'Together for Education Rally' in Westminster to call on the Conservative Party leadership contenders to reverse cuts to schools. According to the campaign, 91% of schools have suffered per-pupil funding cuts in real terms since 2015. It would cost £2.2 billion to bring funding back up to 2015 levels. In a bid to reverse these cuts, parents, MPs, councillors and trade unionists will meet in London this Saturday for the Together for Education rally. Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran ...
As a child of the Windrush generation, Windrush Day is hugely important to me. I'm so glad that we, as a society, are marking it. The term 'the Windrush Generation' stems from the arrival, on June 22, 1948, of the ship The Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks, just east of London, bringing with it the first immigrants from the Caribbean. It denotes the large-scale influx of Caribbean immigrants during the years that followed.There's been a lot of Press about the terrible treatment of people who came here from the Caribbean in the late 1940s and onwards, who now find that ...
It is fair to say that most of us are watching the machinations and intrigues around selecting the next leader of the Conservative Party, and our next Prime Minister, with a mixture of astonishment and horror. It is like seeing a slow motion car crash in horrendous detail on a loop tape, so terrifying that even though we have seen it once, twice, three times, we still can't turn our head away. But who are these 120,00 people who will be determining the fate of our country, and how representative are they of the rest of the country? The Independent ...
It's not only former Labour figures joining the Liberal Democrats. The party is winning over people from the Conservatives too. Or, in the case of Steve Fitzsimmons a former Conservative councillor who had later joined Labour but is now a Liberal Democrat: Great to have Steve Fitzsimmons, who was the last @Conservatives councillor in Liverpool and represented Woolton & Gateacre between 1988-1998, join the @LibDems. More soon on why he's joined but if, like Steve, you want to build a new liberal movement, join us! pic.twitter.com/a1CcXtPWUk — Kristofor Brown (@Kristoforbrown) June 21, 2019 Welcome, Steve Fitzsimmons.
The draft report, which is available for comment, is on Sefton Council's website – see link below:- www.sefton.gov.uk/shma This is the general comment I have made in response to the draft assessment:- I remain concerned that Sefton is not targeting sufficient social housing, single level housing for the elderly/those with disabilities and 1 and 2 bedroomed properties in general both social housing and the ordinary housing market. At the same time the Council is pursuing building on Green Belt/high grade agricultural land whilst not achieving sufficient housing in the categories I have mentioned above. It is bad enough losing high ...
Our politicians and press like to bang on about "British Values" and are very keen that immigrants should make themselves more acceptable by absorbing them. it is a nonsense of course that these values, however defined, are exclusive to Britain. They are what are, or should be, observed by decent people in all civilised societies. On my younger days "honour" was an important one. We were taught in Sunday School to "honour" our fathers and mothers (with the incentive that if we did our days would be long in the land which the Lord had given us.) When I was ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT REPORT FOR WEST END WARD - SATURDAY 22 AND SUNDAY 23 JUNE 2019 Blackness Road (Glamis Road to Blackness Avenue) - closed on Saturday 22 June (12.00 noon - 4.00pm) for surface dressing works. Antiques Roadshow - Saturday 22 June: Earl Grey Place West, South Crichton Street, South Castle Street and Earl Grey Place East closed for 2 days. Sunday 23 June: South Commercial Street, Riverside Esplanade and Tay Road Bridge (westbound off-slip) closed for one day. Shepherds Loan (at junction with Perth Road) - closed on Sunday 23 June for Scottish Water ...
Sat 22nd
06:55
Defeat! Bitter blow as planning inspector approves five bungalows on Sidney Road green
Since February, a Bristol based planning inspector has been examining an appeal for five independent living bungalows on the green space at the bottom of Sidney Road and Charlton Rise. On Thursday, she announced that the appeal had been allowed and gave the scheme planning permission. The good news is that the scheme is for five affordable homes. The bad news is it will lead to the loss of a fine Norway Maple and much of an important green space. This decision is final and can only be revoked by the high court. Although we need affordable homes, we also ...
