So it looks like the efforts of Unite to Remain are about to bear fruit. For some months, difficult negotiations have taken place. Now, a result has been achieved in tens of seats which will see Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru or Greens stand down in favour of one Remain candidate. Details fo the seats in question will be announced tomorrow. Jo Swinson said: We are delighted that an agreement has been reached. We would like to thank Unite to Remain for making this possible. This is a significant moment for all people who want to support remain candidates across the ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Lib Dems: Missed budget shows extent of Tories' Brexit mess Lib Dems: Swinson visiting businesses, while Johnson's Brexit damages their prospects Lib Dems enter into historic arrangement to elect Remain MPs Lib Dems: Missed budget shows extent of Tories' Brexit mess Today was the intended date of Sajid Javid's first Budget as Chancellor. Responding to this, Liberal Democrat shadow Chancellor and Deputy Leader Ed Davey said: Today should've been the Conservative's budget day, but if anything, the fact it's not happening shows that the Conservative Party are not fit for office. The mess they have got us into, with Boris ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice
Wed 6th
22:35

Europe in Flux

Thirty years ago this weekend the Berlin Wall came down, signalling the demise of Communism in Europe and the end of the Cold War. I still remember watching the extraordinary scenes on TV as East Berliners crossed into the West in a state of disbelief. It seems like yesterday. Yet for anyone under 35 there [...]

Posted by jonathanfryer on Jonathan Fryer

Good news from the Evening Standard: Sixties rock legends The Bonzo Dog Band have won a legal battle to put the Doo Dah back into their name.I blogged about this affair back in July. Now let's celebrate with the jolliest song I know.

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

A week ago Mims Davies announced that she was standing down as MP for Eastleigh: I am a single parent of two wonderful girls and, over the last few years, it has been become increasingly difficult to juggle the responsibilities have I first and foremost as a mother and, secondly, as an MP and minister.She must have taken a course in advanced juggling, because today she her name appeared on the shortlist to be the new Conservative candidate for Mid Sussex, the seat just vacated by Sir Nicholas Soames. Davies had a majority of over 14,000 at the last election, ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Updated 6 November with two new constituency polls. So far, we've had eight constituency opinion polls released, one full set of MRP data (which is a large scale national poll then used to model the results in individual constituencies) plus of course the 2017 general election results in all seats. How do they compare? Let's look at those seats for which we have all three. In seven out of eight cases, both the constituency poll and the MRP data used agree on which pair of parties is currently in the top two slots (and hence who should be considered as ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

These were all new stories to me, as far as I can recall, and I watched them with forty years of pent-up excitement for each next episode. 2.7: Killer, written by Robert Holmes, directed by Vere Lorrimer Apart from the regulars (Michael Keating, Paul Darrow, Jacqueline Pearce), none of the guest cast this time has acted on Doctor Who. But, wow. Here is Robert Holmes, writer of some of the best Doctor Who stories, script editor for the first glorious half of Tom Baker's time in the TARDIS, applying his talents to a new situation. And Morris Barry, in front ...

Two new constituency polls show the Liberal Democrats with strong chances of gaining seats, including that of arch-Brexiter John Redwood.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

Photo: Charles D.P. Miller John Hemming has posted a statement on what he calls a 'campaign of false allegations' that has been conducted against him for the past four and a half years. He writes: Yesterday there was a court judgment Baker v Hemming [2019] EWHC 2950 (QB) which formally confirmed that the allegations were false. Esther Baker, who had brought a libel claim against me, dropped her defence of Truth to my counter-claim and was taken by the judge as no longer trying to prove her allegations.John, who was Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley between 2005 and 2015, ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

As the election campaign kicks off, how much attention do people pay to things politicians do and say?

Posted by Nick Barlow on Stories by Nick Barlow on Medium
YouGov

Today was the intended date of Sajid Javid's first Budget as Chancellor. Responding to this, Liberal Democrat shadow Chancellor and Deputy Leader Ed Davey said:"Today should've been the Conservative's budget day, but if anything, the fact it's not happening shows that the Conservative Party are not fit for office."The mess they have got us into, with Boris Johnson's ridiculous do or die promise and illegal shutdown of Parliament, has led to more time being wasted whilst we fail to discuss the biggest issues facing our country. That is why we are having this election."By not having the budget, the Conservatives ...

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

Responding to Boris Johnson's statement outside Downing Street this afternoon, Liberal Democrat shadow Brexit secretary Tom Brake said:"We're just a few hours into the campaign and the Conservative Party are already in dire straits following a string of major gaffes. "Whilst Johnson outlines his terrible proposals, Jo Swinson is out in the country, visiting businesses that will be badly damaged by Johnson's Brexit."The Liberal Democrats have an ambitious plan for our future. We will stop Brexit and build a brighter future."

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

The appropriateness of a debate format should be measured by how well it reflects the current political situation in the country.

Posted by guestcontributor on Mark Pack

Latest update from South Glos 6th November: "This scheme is now going ahead next week and Westerleigh Road will be closed from Tuesday 12 November - Thursday 14 November from 9.30am - 3.30pm. Please plan ahead." The Westerleigh Road will be closed for 3 days 9.30 am - 3.30 pm between The Folly pub and the traffic lights at the top of Westerleigh Hill. This is due to carriageway patching work by South Glos Council. There are bound to be delays while this busy commuter route is shut. South Glos say "A signed diversion will be in place. Access to ...

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

First to explain the commas around "Facts" in the title. Ther are in fact no facts about the future,* just predictions with a varying likelihood of being correct. So this post is really about some perditions in the election campaign which in my view are highly likely to be correct, and which the BBC's "news reality check has deemed to be reasonable. Labour's Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that, if the NHS is opened up to the US "Big Pharma" in a free trade deal this could cost the NHS an extra £500m a week. This, it is true, is a ...

Posted by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal

The thing I was most scared about during the 2015 election was not having Norman Lamb as a Minister any more. He had done so much for mental health and I was worried that some Tory (because I feared they would win) would just undo all his work. A House of Commons without Norman in it is a poorer place. Yesterday he gave his valedictory speech in the Commons, and he talked about how important it was for politicians to give those without power a voice and change the system to give them power. Norman, all the very best with ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

Many people will know that my family and I have been subject to a campaign of false allegations by Esther Baker for the past 4 1/2 years. Yesterday there was a court judgment Baker v Hemming [2019] EWHC 2950 (QB) which formally confirmed that the allegations were false. Esther Baker, who had brought a libel claim against me, dropped her defence of Truth to my

Posted by John Hemming on John Hemming's Web Log

Yesterday was a bad day for the Conservative's nascent election campaign. Jacob Rees-Mogg's comments about Grenfell victims supposedly lacking commons sense were both offensive and amateurish. The damage wrought by the JRM episode was doubled down upon by Andrew Bridgen, who in trying to defend Rees-Mogg only made things much worse. Spending part of a whole day of the early election campaign having senior Tories defending comments on Grenfell was possibly the worst thing that could have happened to the governing party. Grenfell was a major political problem for the Tories in 2017 and bringing it all back up again ...

Posted by Nick on nicktyrone.com
Wed 6th
11:00

My tweets

Tue, 12:15: RT @JP_Biz: Listen up Northern Ireland Business: the government is adamant & unshakable that the new GB-NI trading arrangements will come i... Tue, 12:18: RT @MichaelAodhan: @JP_Biz Listen up Government, there is a huge amount for you to do for NI biz before Jan 2021 including derogations, tru... Tue, 12:56: RT @TaliaShadwell: Been debating whether I should share this - but think it's a revealing - and somewhat creepy - insight into how big tech... Tue, 20:47: Tuesday reading https://t.co/anf9qC9H1X Tue, 20:48: Gun violence: A very American epidemic https://t.co/6IKJxS8DQ2 An optimistic observer. Well, we'll see... Tue, 22:13: RT ...

Jo Swinson has today launched the Liberal Democrats' Plan for a Brighter Future ahead of starting her national election tour.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack
eUKhost

The Brexit of the Johnsons and Rees-Moggs of this world will free Britain from "the manacles" of the EU. This will enable Brexit to be used to slash and burn all those pesky regulations designed to protect workers' rights. Johnson has now left them to be discussed in the non-binding political declaration, no longer preserved by the legally binding withdrawal agreement. Rees-Mogg concurs. Jacob Rees-Mogg is visible as a devout Catholic, sometimes ostentatiously so. But the social teaching of his church is set squarely against this Brexit vision, since it is often regulations inspired in part by Catholic social teaching ...

Posted by John McHugo on Liberal Democrat Voice
Wed 6th
09:51

Norman

Some years ago I heard Michael Palin being described as 'the nicest man in England' and he may well have been given an award to that effect. At the time I thought yes I can see that, you can't think of Palin doing anything but good. But in politics few people are thought of as being nice, yet one man stands out for me – Norman Lamb MP. Now don't get me wrong, like many other Remainers, I have struggled with Norman's struggles over whether he would back a Brexit Deal. His agonising over Johnson's deal, which from an economic ...

Posted by Cllr. Tony Robertson on Sefton Focus

A large Ethel Walker still life of blood red poppies and black-and-gold Chinese lacquer boxes dominates (in the positive sense of the word) the sitting room of our house in London. It was a painting that as soon as I saw it around 25 years ago I knew I had to live with. The artist [...]

Posted by jonathanfryer on Jonathan Fryer

This has been a week of gambits; each party has spent the first days of this campaign issuing their first pitches to the country, and trying to set the tone of the debate to their liking. From now on the endless series of pledges, manifestos and almost certainly ludicrous spending ideas will dominate the party events and news headlines for the ensuing weeks. We have even began to see the inevitable debate over debates; Jo Swinson has been excluded from the major ITV event announced at this stage, and we are to be left with the repartee of two stale ...

Posted by Patrick Maxwell on Liberal Democrat Voice

The UK Government is not having a good time with its propaganda. As the Guardian reports a series of government ads extolling the virtues of universal credit and purporting to bust negative myths about the flagship Conservative welfare policy has been banned because it is "misleading": In an embarrassing indictment of the policy before next month's general election, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that a claim that people moved into work faster on universal credit (UC) than under the old system could not be substantiated. Two other claims - that jobcentres will pay an advance to people who need ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black

Shropshire Council's highways contract with Kier is not hitting many of its performance targets. The council is making the usual excuses. The weather was bad. Err, welcome to Shropshire. It pleads there were teething problems with the contract. Keir has a turnover of £4.5 billion. Shropshire Council has a budget above half a billion. How come these giants struggle to introduce a highways contract that costs £21m a year? A whistleblower has submitted evidence that Shropshire Council does not properly monitor its highway contractors, Kier and WSP. The whistleblower, a Senior Quantity Surveyor who worked as a contractor for the ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

From the City Council : Work is programmed to commence at the above location on Friday 8th November 2019 and will last for approximately 3 days. The Contractor for the works is Tayside Contracts. On-street parking will not be allowed on the section of carriageway being worked on. Vehicular access will be maintained although we ask for vehicular traffic movements to be kept to a minimum and advise delays may be experienced. Please note that pedestrian thoroughfare will be maintained throughout the works. If you have any queries, please contact the Roads Maintenance Partnership by telephoning 834126.

The staging of leaders debates for general elections should be written into law, with the format and inclusion based on independent rules, the Liberal Democrats have said. The party is calling for existing rules to be overhauled to wrest control away from the two old parties who have shown time and again that, whilst they will claim to oppose everything the other says, they are very happy to do backroom deals to shut out other voices. Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:"It should not be in the gift of any political party to decide whether the public ...

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