Umunna: Johnson Brexit policy will result in £90bn hit to the public purse The Chancellor has today confirmed that the Government is already having to hold back £26-27 billion of fiscal headroom to deal with the disastrous impact of a No Deal exit from the European Union, and that even more than that will be needed. Furthermore, the Government's own analysis shows that a disruptive No Deal Brexit will hit the public purse by £90 billion as a minimum. Commenting on the Chancellor Phillip Hammond's remarks, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Treasury and Business, Chuka Umunna MP, said: Boris Johnson plans ...
I've had rum, so this is probably not the most professionally written recipe. ( cut to save your f-list ) [IMG: comment count unavailable] comments
Ed and Jo spent a lot of the day togeher. Here they are at Sky News The @LibDems leadership hopefuls say they would not back another Scottish Independence referendum. @EdwardJDavey says it would cause "chaos" and @joswinson insists people in Scotland do not want another vote. Follow the debate: https://t.co/UH8nCYBxU9 pic.twitter.com/Ifm4L71hYM — Sky News Politics (@SkyNewsPolitics) July 1, 2019 And Ed doesn't go that far back into history to pick his historical hero – but he did work for him. He writes about how Paddy inspired him: Paddy's stories only added to his mystique and magnetism. A young colleague was ...
Michael O'Carroll has been reselected as the Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for Swansea West and Chloe Hutchinson has been selected for the Welsh Assembly.
The Stiperstones were originally a landscape of small settlements, with many 'squatter' cottages occupied by lead miners and their families. The cottages at Blakemoorgate were inhabited until the 1950s and have recently been conserved. These recordings come from the 'sound box' for visitors now to be found in the restored cottages. You can read more about life at Snailbeach in the 1950s in a guest post on this blog.
Yesterday was the all important voting day. As ballots were being dispatched, Jo and Ed were on Sky News. "We can win the next election."@LibDems leadership candidates @EdwardJDavey and @joswinson on why they could be the next PM. Swinson says they're the "alternative" to the "doom and gloom" that would be caused by Farage and Johnson. Follow the debate: https://t.co/UH8nCYBxU9 pic.twitter.com/VtGi3s8sBp — Sky News Politics (@SkyNewsPolitics) July 1, 2019 And on to Channel 4 And an hour with Iain Dale..... Jo also wrote in the Sctsman about he antidote that Liberalism offers to nationalism.. She told the Herald about how ...
Many years back I wrote about how Erskine May, the rules of our House of Commons, are locked away from us, the citizens, by copyright laws and a big price tag: Erskine May is the House of Commons rulebook - but if you want to get a copy, it'll cost you £268.40 from a commercial publisher, and Parliament has said no to a request for a free electronic copy from a member of the public... Imagine if a new set of Parliamentary rules were written this year (for, perhaps, a reformed and elected Upper House) and Parliament proposed not only ...
"He had a modest even self-effacing manner and invariably had a smile on his face and a chuckle in his greeting, but his Liberal commitment was deep and his impact on the party's organisation and strength was significant indeed for over half a century." Tony Greaves pays tribute to Geoff Tordoff. "Since journalists mostly get their sense of the political conversation from Twitter and it is dominated by younger and more fire-breathing types, political perceptions and depictions of the Democrats in the media have come to reflect their priorities." Michael Tomasky on the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination Andew ...
How amazing has it been to see the joyous, determined bunch of Lib Dem MEPs taking their seats in Strasbourg today? I will love Barbara Gibson forever for having hers on the right way round. Today our @LibDems MEPs take their place in the Euro Parliament. They are testimony to the fact that most people now want to stay in the EU. All polls for over a year have noted a #remain majority it's time for a #peoplesvote pic.twitter.com/ddm4vrsE4W — Dick Newby (@RichardNewby3) July 2, 2019 Well done to all of our MEPs for grabbing the attention in a much ...
Catherine Slessor wrote in the Observer about the "fussy, frivolous neo-gothic wedding cake" that is the Palace of Westminster. While it undergoes a £4bn restoration, it will he housed in Richmond House on Whitehall. the building will be gutted so that a replica of the current Commons chamber can be fitted inside. Which means that the oblong shape and the two sides of the house glaring at one another will be maintained. As Slessor says: Doubtless MPs will find it comforting, a green leather umbilicus connecting them with the ailing mothership, but it does seem like another missed opportunity to ...
Current Gateways, ed. Elizabeth Anne Hull First Generation, by Mary Tamm Last books finished "Goat Song", by Poul Anderson Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible, by Stan Lee, Peter David and Colleen Doran The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, by Dennis O'Driscoll The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang Becoming, by Michelle Obama Next books 1913: The World before the Great War, by Charles Emmerson The Making and Remaking of the Good Friday Agreement, by Paul Bew
I talk a lot on this blog about FCC, because that's the committee I'm on, but there are loads of others, and in a few months any of you who are lib dem members will get to vote for who sits on some of them, so I thought a rough guide to what each one is and does might be handy. FB AKA: Federal Board, The Board, apparently the young people call them The Feds Do I get to vote for who is on it? Somewhat. There are a lot of appointees to FB, although most of those will have ...
The final weekend of Ed's campaign was as hectic as the previous month. Talking to Nick Robinson on the BBC Political Thinking podcast. LibDem leadership contender Ed Davey defends his party's anti-Brexit slogan [IMG: 🎧] Political Thinking with @BBCNickRobinson [Tap to expand] https://t.co/4atdoD1Qvl pic.twitter.com/jEhqGlIJIJ — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) June 28, 2019 And his final pitch to members: I've got a track record as a media performer – from Question Time to Politics Live to Any Questions to the Today Program. But I know it's not enough to just get onto the media. I have a record that to be proud ...
The final weekend of the campaign saw a massive push for votes by both leadership candidates. But for Jo, Saturday was a special day. Her son Gabriel's first birthday. In a Twitter thread, she described the events of 29 June 2018. The raw, beautiful, fierce power of birth is awe-inspiring. Our bodies are amazing. (10/10) pic.twitter.com/idIcXqoqNl — Jo Swinson (@joswinson) June 29, 2019 Jo's final email to members sent out by the Party came from Tom Brake: Stopping Brexit is our overwhelming priority. To do that, we need to build the broadest possible movement, working with those who will fight ...
During the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum one of the points of dispute amongst electoral reform campaigners was whether or not to welcome the support of Ukip. It's a classic cross-party campaign dilemma: how far do you go in welcoming the support of, and even appearing alongside, those who agree with you on one issue but very much disagree with on others? For me, the willingness to work with others should be broader for those issues which by their nature require cross-party support, such as the rules under which our elections are run. So on balance, it is good news that: ...
An hour and a half of wearing out shoe leather and getting burnt in the sun this morning - but all in a good cause. I delivered 208 Focuses in Dunston Hill. I'm back home now, writing our next eFocus. It should be out before the end of the week.
"We must be more than a political party or we will cease to be one," said the great writer G. K. Chesterton, when he was a Liberal. "Time and again historic victory has come to a little party with big ideas: but can anyone conceive anything with a mark of death more on its brow than a little party with little ideas," I am writing about the man at the moment and I believe he was right, and especially perhaps in the first of the two sentences. Nor are we such a little party these days, but the ideas we ...
Mon, 12:20: Started Cycle with #cyclemeter at 12:20, on a new route, see https://t.co/hqRfktTjQR, Cyclemeter will speak your replies to me. Mon, 12:36: Finished Cycle with #cyclemeter, on a new route, time 15:31, distance 2,38 km, see https://t.co/hqRfktTjQR, average 9,20. Mon, 12:56: RT @guardiannews: German sci-fi fans lap up dystopian tales of Brexit Britain https://t.co/014VLh85xi Mon, 13:46: RT @MarinaHyde: This is like one of the Teletubbies having a go at game theory. I mean... you know the EU can see the things you write on t... Mon, 14:05: RT @MatthewOToole2: New Tory message to Britain: beatings will continue until morale ...
We've had a mortgage offer through. It has been recieved by the vendor's solicitor and they've confirmed to our solicitor they've recieved it. We've got an appointment with the mortgage broker this afternoon to check the forms are right and sort out insurance. Then we've got to go to the solicitor and sign things there. Then we transfer a moderately eye-watering deposit and the mortgage provider transfers a hugely eye-watering sum to the vendor. Then we have a house. Phew. We haven't done this before, so we have no real idea of timescale but maybe a couple of weeks? After ...
There was a celebratory mood at the Council meeting of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in Zurich at the weekend. The May European elections sent a record 108 ALDE Party MEPs to the European Parliament, a cohort largely boosted by Emmanuel Macron's MPs from France and Britain's own Liberal Democrats plus Naomi Long from the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. Under pressure from the French (who have a problem with the word "Liberal", because of its economic neo-liberal resonance), the parliamentary group is renaming itself Renew Europe, but there was relief in Zurich that the ALDE ...
While the race to become leader of the Conservative Party dominates the news, another leadership contest is running in parallel: that of the Liberal Democrats. Both parties are polling about 20% currently, but there are good reasons why the Lib Dem contest is not receiving anything like the same level of coverage. The new Tory ... Continue reading Ed or Jo? The Lib Dem leadership race
Four Towns Play Association will be running a free play scheme at Abbotswood School on Tuesdays and Thursdays during August - please see details below.
There was a very interesting article in yesterday's Guardian, on the first study of psychological wellbeing among parliamentarians at Westminster which has found that three out of four MPs probably or definitely suffer from poor mental health. The paper says that the research has found that members of the House of Commons are much more likely than either the general population or people in other high-level jobs to be troubled by distress, depression and similar conditions. Analysis of information given by 146 MPs who filled in a questionnaire about their mental wellbeing showed that 62 (42%) had "less than optimal ...
Since April this year, Russian and Syrian aircraft have bombed over twenty-five hospitals inside the Idlib 'Deconfliction' Zone in northwest Syria, prompting hundreds of thousands of Syrians, many of whom have already been internally displaced, to flee once again. The UN watches helplessly as most of the rest of the world turns its back on the country, uncomfortably grateful that this ongoing horror story rarely makes headlines any more. Even now, Syrian civil society activists struggle on, attempting to provide basic health and rescue services and to resist the brutality of both the regime and its allies and the jihadists ...
This is 'Co-production Week'. The word 'co-production' might sound like film industry slang for collaborative film making between two production companies - well, actually it is – but it's also a newish buzzword in health and social care which essentially means 'involving the people that matter, in all stages of decisions and design of services that [...] The post Have we got what it takes to co-produce? appeared first on Radix.
Entries are now welcome for 2019's Dundee City Council Garden and Allotment Competition. Whether you have a garden, window box or a community space, there's a category for you! You can read more here - entries close 19th July.
On Sunday afternoon, I was out walking my dog when I was threatened by a man on a path about 15 minutes' walk from my house. I'll spare you the details but the five or so minutes until I was able to get away from him felt like a great deal longer and it is not an exaggeration to say that I feared for my life. It was the second most terrifying experience of my life – the first being when my husband was rushed back into theatre in the middle of the night following his open heart surgery. It ...
