Sat 13th
23:38

Another Focus delivery

Last night was my last opportunity to deliver the latest Focus in a Whickham North patch before it expired. The newsletter carried an advert for the Chase Park fair today so it was either a case of putting them through people' doors, or putting them in the recycling bin. The former won out! The Focus also included information about the PCC by-election, so I had an added incentive to get them

Posted by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace

Yesterday I had a very useful meeting with the Northumbria Police Federation. This was held at my request as I wanted to speak to representatives of officers about how they felt about the state of the force, staff morale and issues of concern to them. The meeting lasted an hour and a half and was a very useful insight into the state of affairs and how officers are coping.

Posted by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace

On Wednesday I was at the BBC for a Radio Newcastle interview, the the three other Northumbria PCC candidates, and in the afternoon I was at Tyne Tees TV. Evening saw Lib Dem group meeting, followed by Gateshead Local Party exec. To round off the day, I headed up to the Lib Dem office at Consett to help shift 20 boxes of A4 paper. All in a day's work!

Posted by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace

Today's Saturday so it must be... Sheffield to take part in an excellent afternoon of discussions about the environment: policies, politics and campaigning.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

I'm trying to get my mind around Labour's new policy on Brexit. Having gone from sitting on the fence about a confirmatory referendum, now they claim to support a further vote on the "Tory Brexit Deal" or on a no deal Brexit if the Conservatives push for Brexit before the general election. This is after Labour have said for months that there will be no further referendum. But what is on offer at

Posted by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace
Sat 13th
20:07

Biscuits in Brecon....

This weekend, Liberal Democrats have been flocking to help Jane Dodds win Brecon and Radnorshire for the Liberal Democrats. This time next week, I'll be there. I am so excited because I have never been out of Cardiff before and I'm so looking forward to seeing more of Wales. Here are just some of the people who have been helping. Cambridge PPC Rod Cantrill said: Great to be back again in Brecon with two car loads of activists from Cambridge door knocking for Jane Dodds on the Brecon Ro(a)d trip! Alex Cole-Hamilton's wife Gill may well be annoyed that they ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

You may have noticed that m.any Liberal Democrats have an orange diamond appear after their name on Twitter. Here's how to add one yourself.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Sat 13th
14:07

Star-gazing

When I was young I wanted to be an astronomer. At 16 I proudly got myself elected as the Secretary of the Irish Astronomical Association, which still exists and meets in Belfast. (It had originally been founded in 1946 as the Belfast branch of the Irish Astronomical Society, but had split off in 1974, retaining an all-Ireland perspective.) At 17 I wrote my one and only scientific publication, a review of a book by Patrick Moore (not actually published until two years later). At 18 I spent a few months working at the Armagh Observatory. The duties imposed on me ...

Fields In Trust is the national group that champions and supports our parks and green spaces by protecting them for people to enjoy forever. Their annual UK's Best Park competition is now open for voting - you can see the parks and green spaces that have been nominated and cast your vote here. Please consider voting for our lovely Kingsgate Park, which has something for everyone, or look for your other favourites. A vote for Kingsgate Park would be a lovely "Thank You" for all the Yate Town Council staff and the Friends of Kingsgate Park who work so hard ...

Posted by Paul Hulbert on Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington

Last Sunday morning, I almost choked on my tea when I read something Nick Harvey had written in an article remembering Paddy Ashdown in the party's Ad Lib members' magazine. Nick had included an anecdote that was undeniably sexist. Nobody needed to know about his inside leg measurement at all, let alone who had measured ti. The rest of the article had some lovely memories of the Paddy we all know and love, but this was beyond the pale. So I wrote Nick an email that, when I read it back later, was much ruder than I intended. I was ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice
YouGov

In 101 Ways To Win An Election, Ed Maxfield and I wrote that: Data is your organisational lifeblood ... You need to love and cherish data, and keep a close eye on both quality and quantity. Far too often, campaigners fail to keep an eye on either, resulting in lost opportunities and mistakes made. How do you avoid that trap? Here are my five top tips. 1. Backup, backup, backup The office wall in one of my former jobs had a cartoon with two drunks slumped in an alleyway bemoaning their fate. One was saying to the other, "It all ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
Sat 13th
13:01

Eton ethos

Our former prime minister Harold Wilson was born and brought up in Hundersfield and to mark the connection the University of Huddersfield holds an annual Harold Wilson Memorial Lecture. This year the topic was "The Will of the People" and the lecturer was the anomalously styled (Anglican) Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines. The entire lecture is well worth reading and can be found here Early in the lecture Bishop Baines quoted this comment on the transition of the premiership from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown in 2007 [Johnson] went on to say: "They voted for Tony, and yet they now ...

Posted by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal
Sat 13th
11:00

My tweets

Fri, 12:56: RT @WilliamMcGowa15: Erosion of North's two tribes vests power in the non-aligned https://t.co/vGaFi4pn5N Fri, 13:55: A New Prime Minister, Same Old Brexit? The View From London https://t.co/BI0jG5faLQ My @APCOWorldwide colleague @balgailani sums it up. Fri, 15:11: Loyalists celebrate victory after Belfast council tried to ban bonfire https://t.co/ZFl0ve4JZe I am quoted. Fri, 16:05: LOL https://t.co/TfSPS09BHQ Fri, 17:11: RT @NtiAning: Eddie Murphy did an interview in 1990 about John Landis and COMING TO AMERICA and it is wild. https://t.co/DO9eZsa66H Fri, 20:48: At Vatican, empty tombs add new twist to missing girl mystery https://t.co/efcxU3k8Q2 Extraordinary story. Sat, 07:33: RT @afneil: This ...

A Brexit party MEP took his party's hatred of foreigners to a new low this week, after he called for foreign fishing vessels to be "given the same treatment as the Belgrano", the Argentinian cruiser sunk by the Royal Navy with the loss of hundreds of lives. As the Guardian reports, Robert Rowland, a hedge fund manager, made the remarks in a tweet about "the restoration of sovereignty over our waters", in celebration of a fellow MEP, June Mummery, joining the European parliament's fisheries committee. He wrote: "We are behind all our fisherman [sic] and the restoration of sovereignty over ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

This weekend we are publishing the speeches of Lib Dem MPs in the recent debate on assisted dying. Norman Lamb described at length the nightmare a family went through as doctors and police reacted to their terminally ill mother's attempt at suicide. It brings home the reality of the issues people face. Should we really be putting grieving relatives through police interrogations? As Norman says, this family's experience shows the need for a change in the law. It was a pleasure to join the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) in applying for this debate. I want to ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Sadly one of Liverpool's most significant historical buildings (listed in 1966) is presently not doing so well. If you use Facebook the link below from the Victorian Society may be of interest as it details the present state of affairs:- I've blogged about Waterhouse and his Liverpool connections previously and here's a link back to that posting:- My thanks to Jen Robertson for the lead to this posting

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

 

Responding to this year's Chief Inspector of Prisons' annual report, Liberal Democrat Justice Spokesperson Wera Hobhouse said:"This report is utterly damning of the Conservatives' neglect of our prisons."With prisons so badly overcrowded and in such an appalling state, prisoners are not being properly rehabilitated. That means more reoffending and more people becoming victims of crime."Too many people are in prison who shouldn't be there. We know that short prison sentences don't work, especially for women."The Liberal Democrats demand better. The Government must end overcrowding in prisons by making greater use of alternatives such as community sentences, women's centres and restorative ...

Posted by Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats have called for clear "targets with teeth" for improving judicial diversity, as new figures show that just 7% of court judges are BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) and 32% are women. The statistics, published (pdf here) by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the Senior President of Tribunals, show that:Of the 39 Court of Appeal judges, only 9 (23%) are women and just 2 (6%) are BAME.Of the 97 High Court judges, only 26 (27%) are women and just 3 (3%) are BAME.Of all 3,210 court judges, only 1,013 (32%) are women and ...

Posted by Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats on Aberavon & Neath Liberal Democrats