Jane Dodds: Politicians must right WASPI Injustice Jane Dodds: Irish border plan designed to fail Jane Dodds: Politicians must right WASPI Injustice Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds has responded to the WASPI campaign's defeat in the High Court, claiming it is the responsibility of politicians to right the injustice suffered by WASPI Women. Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds MP commented: This ruling will undoubtedly be disappointing for all those women affected. Women who have campaigned tirelessly to reverse the unfair change to their pensions. My thoughts are with all these women today. This ruling must remind us politicians ...
Seven seats up for election across six wards in this week's council by-elections. Five of those six wards have a Liberal Democrat candidate, the same ratio as the last time they were contested. Here are the results as they come: Syston West (Charnwood) result: CON: 44.7% (-6.4) GRN: 42.8% (+19.4) LAB: 12.5% (-13.0) Conservative HOLD. — Britain Elects (@britainelects) October 3, 2019
Today Johnson presented a brief outline of his fantastic plan for a withdrawal agreement. It doesn't appear to have gone down very well with anyone on the Opposition benches and our European friends don't seem very enthusiastic either. I can't say I'm impressed. I'll be honest about my own position: I would like to be in the EEA / Single Market, outside the Customs Union. Norway. Second best, Remain though stop the silly Project Fear fibs and exaggerations. No point in a Turkey-style Customs Union as a Free Trade agreement is a lot more flexible. No Deal / WTO is ...
Thirty-eight years ago I travelled on the last train from Market Harborough to Northampton. Now comes news from Harborough FM that there is talk of reopening the line. 'Steve Jones, Chairman of Harborough Rail Users Group', incidentally, was my companion on that journey in 1981. The cause of this Harborough FM item is the consultation document for the new West Northamptonshire Strategic Plan, which says: North - South Rail: The re-opening the Market Harborough to Northampton line would provide the potential for a new national corridor. If pursued, this would link the Midland Main Line northwards - thereby including such ...
Today a group of women lost their case in the High Court over whether the rise in the pension age to 67 by 2018 is unfair because they were not given enough time to make adjustments to cope with years without a state pension. The court found that the change corrects historic discrimination against men and isn't unfair. I have no sympathy whatsoever with the case being made. As a man I have always been astonished that men were expected to work 5 years more than women for their state pension. This situation is even more unfair when you take ...
Waiting for the outcome of the nomination count for Party President felt a wee bit like that scene from The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon explains about Schrodinger's Cat. You know, where as long as the box is closed the cat is both dead and alive? The relief when they cat was actually alive, and I was nominated, was huge! Now is when the work really starts, in listening to what you want from your new President, and whether I fit the bill. I have no illusions about how much work is involved, or what it will take to continue ...
"Democracy is not just a tool for making decisions and picking between options, it's an ongoing process of representation and dialogue that's seeking to establish a way in which we can all comfortably co-exist. Voting is not the be-all and end-all of the process but rather just one stage within it." Nick Barlow says Brexit is a symptom and a result of a much wider malaise in British politics. With the government doing all it can to raise the political temperature, Gabriel Power offers a list of the MPs who have been murdered in office. An ethic of wonder that ...
If Alex Cole-Hamilton were to slap me, he would, rightly, face the full force of the law. If he were to slap his 5 year old daughter Darcy (which would never happen), he could do so with the full support of the law, which allows "reasonable chastisement." That is an inconsistency that he has been campaigning against for years. Today his work and that of many others was rewarded when the Scottish Parliament voted to give children the same protection from assault in law as adults, becoming the first country in the UK to do so. I've known Alex for ...
Devon Live wins our Headline of the Day Award and the judges add that they are "not surprised". But seriously, it's an interesting article and I am all in favour of rewilding.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Second paragraph of third story ("The Ambush", by Andy Frankham-Allen): The colonel looked back at his squad. They'd made it as far as Charing Cross Station before the fungus stuff blocked their way. Up until now it had been safer to travel on foot through the Underground tunnels, but the Yeti had started advancing there too. Spreading out that web of theirs. He glanced at the civilian they'd rescued. The one man who could help them in this fight. Professor Travers. This is a set of eight short stories in Andy Frankham Allen's Lethbridge-Stewart universe, looking not only at the ...
Canvassing is one of those things that many of us take for granted. It is part of what we do. Occasionally a meeting on a doorstep will echo down the years, coming back into the mind and setting a scene. Such a meeting happened to me some years ago. It was in a Labour Ward in Liverpool, at the height of the Militant Tendancy regime. I knocked at a door in a Council estate and asked the gentleman who came to the door if he would vote for us. As I anticipated, he said no, he wouldn't. So I asked ...
In 2013, I went to a Bruges Group fringe at Manchester Town Hall, which was just outside of the Tory conference going on in the city at the same time. The panellists were Nigel Farage, Bill Cash, Peter Oborne and someone chairing I can't recall. Bill Cash started and went on and on about how wonderful Farage is; how he is the man leading the charge to get Britain out of the European Union and Nige is for all intents and purposes his personal hero. Farage didn't return the favour – he used his speech to tear into Cash for ...
We're thrilled to announce Nicola Horlick as @LibDems candidate in #Chelsea & #Fulham to #StopBrexit & start solving real problems Incredible businesswoman & NHS champion: will give our 71% Remain area representation we deserve [IMG: 🔶] Say you're with Nicola https://t.co/8FwdMZGJm4 — Kensington & Chelsea #LibDems [IMG: 🔶] (@KCLibDems) October 3, 2019
Following a tip off from a local resident to the effect that contractors working on the Poppy Fields housing estate were in the process of opening up the long- awaited foot/cycle path through to Maghull North Station from Park Lane I went to have a look. This how things were panning out this morning around 8.30am:- But the path does not yet connect to the Station as it's still fenced off near to the Station car Park:- By the way at 8.30am today there were no spaces available in the Station car park as far as I could tell. The ...
I am pathologically fascinated by political probabilities, and have been for easily 20 years: my first big speculative win in life was to "buy" Labour seats in the 1997 General Election at around 350, and I have been hooked every since. Here are some of the current odds. A meaningful vote to pass in 2019 [...]
Wed, 12:56: RT @ssmairs: On rare occasions as a journalist, you get to see your work have a direct impact. Here is a little story about that - not ab... Wed, 13:27: RT @abushe7: Former mayor charged with sexual offences involving a child https://t.co/KH2YZE9Tv3 Wed, 16:05: Amusements https://t.co/NaZmrwNyTa What happens when your parents read your novel translated into their native language? h/t @deuceofgears Wed, 17:04: Stephen Kelly of @ManufacturingNI is not happy with latest UK proposals. (But read whole thread.) https://t.co/5AaEtrEBal Wed, 17:11: Oxford professor's children refused visas to join her in UK https://t.co/FEDCB7Qgsg Britain of the welcomes. Wed, 18:10: ...
Last night I gave a talk about Oscar Wilde and the Central Asian writer Chinghiz Aitmatov, reprising a theme I focussed on in two presentations last December at two universities in Kazakhstan. Aitmatov (1928-2008) is revered in his home country of Kyrgyzstan and managed to assert his literary presence in Moscow during Soviet tomes despite [...]
What does the Conservative party stand for in 2019?' is a question asked in Tuesday's Guardian's Journal section by sociologist, William Davies. That got me thinking back to the count in the early hours of Friday morning in the newly formed Sleaford and North Hykeham Parliamentary at the end of the 1997 General Election, my only foray into the maelstrom of national party politics. As the Lib Dem candidate, who finished a respectable third behind a resurgent Labour Party and ahead of Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party, I watched Douglas Hogg give his customary acceptance speech. I remember vividly the ...
Thu 3rd
08:58
Opinion: If no-deal is such a good idea, how come anyone ever signs a free trade agreement?
In the short term, a no-deal exit from the EU may break the current impasse in UK parliament and please the most ardent Brexiteers. But it does nothing for the future of the Conservative Party or reinvigorating confidence in UK politics. How can the fiscally responsible party, the party which balances the books and gives the people of this country the freedom to make their own decisions, move to a central policy of consciously erecting barriers with many of our close allies and put the economy under tremendous strain? Whether you believe economic forecasts or not, simple economics states that ...
The "new normal" was coined as a new lexicon by Mohamed El-Erian, the then head of the global financial firm PIMCO to describe the post-script of global finance following the financial crisis of 2007-08. With the torrent of news and scandal, it feels as though we are all becoming immune of not sensitised to an almost daily feed of political shocks and ever-more worsening language in the current political maelstrom. The new normal. One aspect of the current pre-election phase - but also a reflection of a structural shift - is the position on public finances for the two parties. ...
Over at The Times, my friend Ali Goldsworthy writes about how difficult it is for politicians to say they are sorry. She points out that standard advice in the crisis communications playbook is to "say sorry, say it quickly and keep saying it". However, this does not appear to work for politicians. She says that the US academic Richard Hanania found that when public figures said sorry for expressing controversial views the response of the electorate was either unaffected or more likely to want the individual to be punished. It can actually lead to the politician being ridiculed: In 2012, ...
Further to my recent article about the state of the phone box in Milnbank Road, I have had the following feedback from BT : "I've requested that an engineer be sent to give the box a clean. I'm sorry to say that we will not be repainting the box as it has now been added to our street rationalisation project. Our contractors are due to put a notice in this box to advise that we are removing it. There would be the possibility to adopt the kiosk and our website here shows who can do this." I queried the lack ...
Thu 3rd
03:53
Sidney Road Green is saved! The battle is over. A great early Christmas present for Ludlow
Ring the bells. Bang the drums. March the bands. The green space at the bottom of Charlton Rise has been saved! Social housing provider Connexus has told Ludlow Town Council that it will not proceed with its proposal for five bungalows on the green space on Sidney Road at the bottom of Charlton Rise. We must now move to protect this green space and its trees in perpetuity by getting it declared a town green. We should also plant a Norway Maple to replace the one that was felled three years ago. Sidney Road Green before the Norway Maple was ...
