In 1965 the Inland Waterways Association held its National Rally of Boats at Blackburn. Two years later it was held in Leicester and the second of the old IWA Bulletins I bought at Foxton earlier this summer covers it. The most interesting photograph is the one above, whose caption includes the following: But Leicester still faces problems, such as ... its present treatment of the Grand Union alongside the power station at Freeman's Meadow Lock, a perfect setting for large scale redevelopment.I went to the lock today to see if I could replicate this photograph of the weir - the ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey has criticised Home Secretary Priti Patel as "out of touch" for her comments today about the police making people "literally feel terror".Responding to Priti Patel's interview with the Daily Mail, Ed Davey said:"The Liberal Democrats want many more police so they can catch criminals, prevent crime in the first place and work in our communities to help people feel safer - and it's a shame Priti Patel didn't back our campaign for more police these last four years. "Yet Priti Patel's notion that making people terrified of the police will cut crime shows ...

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

Labour have chosen their new parliamentary candidate for Harborough. She is Celia Hibbert, a councillor from Wolverhampton. She was profiled last year by The Cable.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Robert Caro is the author of one of the great political biographies - his 4 ( eventually to be 5) volumes on President Lyndon Johnson, works of quite extraordinary thoroughness famous for the huge amount of research he and his wife Ina ( his only researcher) carried out. This book is a collection of previously ... Continue reading "How the greatest political biographer works"

A reader has asked about this. If you want to add some special features to your comments on this site, you can use HTML coding. Don't be frightened. In a simple example, if you want to do a bit of bolding and a bit italicising, you simply type as in the following example: Test Writing normally <strong>Then bolding a bit.</strong> <em>Then italicising a bit.</em> This will then come out on the site as this: Test Writing normally. Then bolding a bit. Then italicising a bit. So, basically the HTML code involved is not complex. Basically you use the < and ...

Posted by Paul Walter on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sat 3rd
15:03

Brecon By Election

I was delighted to be part of the Lib Dem team working on the Brecon and Radnorshire by election, which saw Jane Dodds elected as our new MP for the region. Jane overturned an 8,000 vote Conservative majority to win by nearly 1,500 votes. The result was great for us, showing that the so called "Boris Bounce" where a new PM is meant to attract lots of new support didn't work nearly well enough, but it is also significant for other reasons. First the decision of the Green Party and Welsh Nationalists not to contest the seat was very welcome, ...

Posted by David Watts on David Watts

Second paragraph of third chapter: Perhaps he'd have time this afternoon to devote some thought to it, though it was already approaching 11am and the stacks of paperwork Corporal Wright had sent over, accompanied by a sweet yet scathing note detailing the dangers of not returning them promptly, had not even been depleted by a fraction. Lethbridge-Stewart sighed. He didn't expect the duties of a colonel to be wholly blood and thunder, but he hadn't expected the rot of bureaucracy to set in quite so quickly either. Sixth book in the Candy Jar Lethbridge-Stewart sequence, secodn of the second series, ...

In the wake of the fantastic win for the Welsh Liberal Democrats in Brecon & Radnorshire, there has been much talk of the effect on that election of the 'Remain Alliance'. There is no doubt that the Green Party and Plaid Cymru standing down helped, but we should be careful about reading too much into it. There are great claims circulating that 'it was that wot won it', so to speak, but I think that's in no way certain at all. Firstly, it should be noted that neither party has been a significant factor in elections in that constituency - ...

Posted by Cen Phillips on Liberal Thoughts

St Albans' Lib Dem candidate Daisy Cooper was on The World at One yesterday talking about how people's voting patterns are shifting and people are turning to the Lib Dems because of our values. St Albans voted heavily to remain in the European election and they have a Leave supporting Conservative MP who's quite happy with no deal. Listen to Daisy here – the piece starts at about 24 minutes in. * Newshound: bringing you the best Lib Dem commentary published in print or online.

Posted by NewsHound on Liberal Democrat Voice
Sat 3rd
11:00

My tweets

Fri, 12:29: RT @DmitryOpines: Perhaps the time to hear from an expert commission on whether Free Ports are a good idea was before: - The Prime Ministe... Fri, 12:56: RT @RupertMyers: The most prophetic sketch about Brexit you'll ever see. Bremner, Bird, and Fortune, 1996 https://t.co/bnzme7VGHX Fri, 18:30: 1913, by Charles Emmerson https://t.co/8e3S56Q1sF Fri, 19:10: RT @BBCRealityCheck: On @BBCr4today MP @JamesCleverly said the UK had been "precluded for decades" from having free ports. The EU does perm... Fri, 19:12: RT @CenTexAg: I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. https://t.co/GSiTzw1K32 Fri, 21:38: !!!!!!!! https://t.co/oT4Pnxa6aq Sat, 11:31: RT @DarranMarshall: #Brexit: Northern Ireland business, ...

YouGov

A week or so ago I wrote about the needs for the Lib Dems to prepare for a partnership parliament. Since then we have won the Brecon by-election and a lot of the talk, quite rightly, has been about the ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?

oris Johnson may have hoodwinked a number of European liberal activists by promising to instate a points-based, also known as "merit-based", immigration system, something for which the Liberal Democrats advocated as recently as Brighton Conference last year. In 2018, proponents of the immigration motion passed by Conference gave weight to their arguments by comparing the policy to Canada's, a country generally seen as having a generous approach to migrants' rights. This much is fair. But we should delve a bit deeper into that policy to understand why it's suddenly popular with the anti-immigrant Conservative government. Canada's points system was established ...

Posted by Em Dean on Liberal Democrat Voice

The only surviving Class 503 'Wirral' EMU was at the Electric Railway Museum in Coventry but that closed not so long ago meaning the rolling stock in the care of that museum had to found new homes. Merseyrail's Class 503 now has a home at the former Hornby Factory in Margate of all places. The link below has the story :- Quote from the article linked above:- The Class 503 trains were built in two batches. The first batch was built in 1938 by Met-Cam and BRC&W Co., their use was on the newly electrified route between Liverpool Central ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

From the City Council : THE ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION ACT 1984 - SECTION 14(1) THE DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL AS TRAFFIC AUTHORITY being satisfied that traffic on the road should be prohibited by reason of footway works being carried out (on Blackness Road) HEREBY PROHIBIT the ENTRY TO AND EXIT FROM Abbotsford Street (at its junction with Blackness Road), Dundee. This notice comes into effect on Monday 5th August 2019 for one week. Pedestrian thoroughfare will be maintained. Alternative routes for vehicles are available via Blackness Road / Seymour Street and reverse. For further information contact 433168. Head of Roads and ...