Alex Wilcock has put up a marvellous thread on Twitter tonight marking 106 years since Baroness Nancy Seear's birth. I was lucky enough to hear her forthright views in person at a couple of conferences back in the 1990s and I remember how sad I was when she died in the middle of the General Election campaign in 1997. Her lifetime of putting all she had into advancing the liberal cause and she never saw our big breakthrough. Read the whole thread: Born OTD 1913: Liberal Hero Nancy Seear A campaigning legend, an intellectual powerhouse and a terrifyingly forceful speaker. ...
Where has Chris Morris been? The man who predicted this future has little to say now it has arrived. The good news is that he has a film - The Day Shall Come - opening in October. He tells the comedy website Chortle: "Since 9/11 it has become standard operating procedure. Informants encourage a person of interest to break the law and when they do, the FBI arrest them. Each plan is put together with the federal attorney. "Arrest is delayed until the case will play in court. So the conviction rate is 98 per cent. The typical sentence is ...
Just a picture this time. Sometimes "as designed" is very different from "as used". The post Bracknell musings 2: "as designed" vs "as used" appeared first on ten pence piece.
Great news that Liberal Democrats in Harborough have re-selected Zuffar Haq as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC).
Second paragraph of third chapter: There was also a Professor of English Literature on board with the address, The Buyngalow, Colbury, Southampton. His name was Alexander Wilson. He had just turned 32. The single-funnelled City of nagpur with its red and black livery had a passenger list of 34 men and 55 women who in the quaint language of the time were 'not accompanied by husband or wife.' Last year we were hugely entertained by the TV series Mrs Wilson, based on the same history as this book. Here's the trailer for it. The story is one of fundamental deceit; ...
There have been some ambitious plans to redraw the map of England over the decades.
Discussion of the sugar levy has focused on effectiveness and moral/political hazards. I want to focus on one problem that makes those redundant: Does it make scientific sense? Not obviously. A popular narrative: In the past, we thought obese people were that way because they lacked willpower and ate too much food, particularly fat, which obviously made you "fat" - it's called fat! Then, scientists who had previously been silenced by the nutrition science establishment (which was in Big Sugar's pocket) bravely spoke up and educated us on the Science! [IMG: ™] , and now we know that it's sugar, ...
Wed 7th
13:30
The best way to answer Coalition guilt-shaming is to challenge austerity and poverty today, head-on
The election of a new Liberal Democrat leader has been followed by a predictable burst of accusations and guilt-shaming - mostly, but not only, from Labour sources - regarding the Lib Dems' part in the Coalition, cuts and austerity. Responses on Liberal Democrat Voice and in other Lib Dem groups have often followed a familiar pattern too. A fair amount of irritated defensiveness. A lot of detailed discussion of the financial situation in 2010, deficit levels, etc. Sometimes a feel of this being a rather theoretical economic argument a bit far away, only raised to torment us. I think this ...
Last night the monthly meeting of Sunniside History Society was held at Sunniside Club. I chaired the proceedings. We had 2 DVDs to view - the first was on the lost cities of the Incas and the second was about old industries in the North East that are no longer with us. I announced that, having viewed the Inca DVD, I have decided to add a visit to Inca cities to my bucket list. Sadly, carrying
In my last piece, I outlined the expected consequences of a depreciating pound and that a looser fiscal response was the only feasible short-term policy response that would be available to deal with the massive macroeconomic shocks that are likely to ensue (an uncoordinated) NO DEAL Brexit. Three and a half questions follow: What is the Boris math for the litany of fiscal promises issuing since his "inauguration"? Are these spending promises feasible & credible in terms of the macro-fiscal context the UK will face in a NO DEAL scenario? What should our response as LibDems be to unpick if ...
I'm off to Birmingham Edgbaston later this month for a fundraiser to help the great local team who finished second in the European elections: Edgbaston Lib Dems are pleased to host Mark Pack at our general election fundraising event. Mark is a well known author, podcaster, blogger and election analyst. Mark's talk is titled: "Why did we do so well in the local and euro elections, and how do we repeat this?" The Lib Dems finished second in the Euro elections in Birmingham Edgbaston this year. With an autumn general election looking increasingly likely, Mark's wise words should help us ...
With an aging population and a squeeze of social care budgets, we are facing as a nation serious problems with housing for older people. As people live longer, their support needs are going to grow. The ultimate course of action is for people to be moved into residential nursing care when there are no further options to support people living at home. This is, of course, an extremely expensive
Wed 7th
11:55
Home Office provides inadequate and evasive answers over controversial Rough Sleeping Support Servic...
The Home Office has refused to give detailed responses to repeated parliamentary questions from Lib Dem Layla Moran on the Rough Sleeping Support Service, despite the MP tabling multiple follow-up questions in an effort to receive clarification. The Rough Sleeping Support Service has recently received national attention for its use of data from homelessness and refugee charities to run immigration checks on rough sleepers. Layla has consistently campaigned for a more compassionate approach to be taken to rough sleeping and homelessness in Oxfordshire and nationwide, having led calls for the Vagrancy Act to be scrapped, and opposing Oxford City Council's ...
Tue, 13:18: TIL that Kate Bush's first idea for the father in Cloudbusting was Patrick Troughton, before she thought of Donald... https://t.co/oWlETmHS8B Tue, 15:07: RT @BrigidLaffan: 1. @hayward_katy & @DavidHennick1 have outlined the reasons for the backstop in detail & done us all a service. This thr... Tue, 17:53: RT @GeorginaEWright: Michael Gove says that EU is 'refusing to negotiate'. But there is more nuance to EU's approach (short thread): https... Tue, 17:54: RT @stephenkb: We laugh at the 30-50 feral hogs guy, but at the moment the plan to stop no deal is that the Labour leadership, the parliame... ...
Many will already have heard of the passing of Joyce Arram on 11 November 2018. Joyce was the Deputy President of Lib Dem Lawyers. I had known Joyce since my days as the membership secretary of Liberal Lawyers in the early 1980s, when Bernard Budd QC was the Chair and Tim Clement Jones the organising secretary. Joyce subsequently became secretary of the Association for many years and was a lifelong Liberal. Her devotion to the Liberal Party was shown by the many times she was a local government and parliamentary candidate as well as an attender at every party conference, ...
The Liverpool Echo has the article on its website – see link below:- I still look upon the Northern Powerhouse as a Northern Poorhouse as it seems to be a southern view of what we northerners need or a southern promise which never seems to be properly funded. The idea of connecting cities from Liverpool to Hull by high speed rail is spot on but it is too oft talked about rather than actually being delivered within a reasonable timescale. The Liverpool Echo article clearly demonstrates the present problems but what we need 'up north' is UK Government investment ...
I've had an idea about bar charts! It's way outside my area of expertise, but indulge me. Right, Northern Ireland has a unique set of parties and in Scotland and Wales the national parties have disrupted the ability of the LabCon duopoly to "game" First Past the Post. In England, though, LabCon game First Past the Post for all its worth. They do everything they can to maintain a dichotomy, "them or us". Then they run a "project fear" on "them". Our campaigning tasks are to avoid being "them" and be an independent, viable, option. I have previously suggested that ...
