And here are the rest... Lib Dems: Johnson's comments show he is no champion of women's rights Sarah Wollaston: Number of GP practices falls to record low as winter crisis approaches Lib Dems won't let your future melt away Tory threat to Channel 4 is attempt to cover up Johnson's cowardice Lib Dems: Johnson's comments show he is no champion of women's rights Responding to Boris Johnson's comments on single mothers, Liberal Democrat Equalities Spokesperson Christine Jardine, said: So many of us in this country know the reality of the sacrifice and effort made by single parents. But yet again ...
Three council by-elections this week: an independent seat, a Conservative seat and a Liberal Democrat one.
It's been a very busy day today, so these are split into two parts... Leaked documents reveal Trump trade deal threat to UK farming Lib Dems: NHS staff shortages worsen under Tories Lib Dems: neither the Tories or Labour have a credible plan for the economy Lib Dems would halt 'Brexodus' Leaked documents reveal Trump trade deal threat to UK farming Leaked documents from US-UK trade deal talks reveal the threat posed to British farmers from a trade deal with Donald Trump, the Liberal Democrats have warned. The detailed documents reveal years of talks between UK and US trade negotiators, ...
Estimated 6,000 criminals could evade justice if Johnson's Brexit goes aheadUK police to be locked out of EU crime database used 1.6 million times a dayBrexit would undermine UK's ability to tackle terrorism and organised crimeThe Liberal Democrats have warned that Boris Johnson's Brexit plans risk enabling thousands of criminals to escape justice, after analysis revealed the extent to which UK police rely on vital EU crime-fighting measures. UK police forces and prosecutors have used the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) to bring over 6,600 criminal fugitives to justice over the past five years, the analysis reveals. This includes 140 for ...
I was excited some years ago to discover that there is an Orthodox monastery in the shadow of the Stiperstones. The website of the Monastery of St Antony and St Cuthbert has four videos that give us a tour of the little monastery and here is the first of them.
At a hustings held in St Laurence's, Church Stretton, last night Philip Dunne, the Conservative candidate for Ludlow and MP for the seat since since 2005, accused his Sikh Labour opponent of "talking through his turban". The Shropshire Star quotes the Liberal Democrat candidate Heather Kidd, who also took part: "The audience was obviously shocked. It was the worst kind of unthinking Tory prejudice. "Mr Dunne apologised quickly, but he should do so again publicly and have a big think about his attitudes, and reflect on his responsibilities. "The comment came 15 minutes after holier-than-thou assertions that the Conservative Party ...
Yesterday, in part 1, Richard looked at the issue of trust. Today, his attention turns to the internal contradictions of Brexit... Brexit is going to fail. We know that. That doesn't mean that the Quitter side isn't going to be able to take Britain out of the EU. Although the internal contradictions have been a big part of what has kept us in - and way past first Mrs May's leaving date and now Boris Johnson's leaving date, both of which were set in stone, both of which went past without us leaving - we have to face the possibility ...
Thu 28th
17:45
Two Waterloo novels: One of the 28th, by G.A. Henty; A Close Run Thing, by Allan Mallinson
Second paragraph of first chapter of One of the 28th:"Yes, it's just right; neither too light nor too heavy. It's rather thick, and I shouldn't be surprised if we get it thicker; but that again don't matter." For in those days not one ship ploughed the waters of our coast for every fifty that now make their way along it. There were no steamers, and the fear of collision was not ever in the minds of those at sea.Second paragraph of first chapter of A Close Run Thing:Hervey's rose did not remain in his shako beyond the convent's courtyard, for ...
We need things that remind us we're all in this together. And we need them now more than ever before. Continue reading →
Every General Election campaign has a 'hold your nerve' moment. And last night's YouGov MRP polling announcement is one such moment. It's a wake-up call for anyone who doesn't want to see a Tory Brexit being delivered in two weeks' time. And we can't pretend it doesn't have challenges for our position. But the situation is always more complicated for Liberal Democrats. Our national seat campaigns are being rolled out in a heavily focused way. We can see from recent seat polls in places like Finchley & Golders Green and Wimbledon that, when voters in those specific constituencies are asked ...
Find out how with one easy setting you can make sure that you are much more likely to see content from pages which you Like on Facebook.
Thu 28th
15:44
Problem is that the leadership don't like admitting that the membership have a say over anything.
Problem is that the leadership don't like admitting that the membership have a say over anything.
Responding to the Institute for Fiscal Studies' analysis of the three main parties' manifestos, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Ed Davey said:"This damning assessment shows that neither the Tories or Labour have a credible plan for the economy. Both are failing to come clean with the electorate and ignoring the Brexit black hole their plans would leave in the public finances. Everyone knows you can't have something for nothing, but both the Tories and Labour are pretending you can."Only the Liberal Democrats are being frank about your money and how we'd spend it. We will stop Brexit and invest the £50 ...
Responding to the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) latest immigration statistics which show that the immigration of EU citizens have fallen to their lowest level since March 2013, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson, Christine Jardine said:"These latest ONS statistics are scandalous. They show that Brexit is undermining our economy and threatening jobs by driving EU citizens away in record numbers. "EU citizens are vital workers for businesses across the country. But these statistics today prove that Brexit is only going to deprive UK employers of access to workers, making business so much more difficult for entrepreneurs up and down the ...
Last night's release of the MRP poll from YouGov gave us our first concrete sense of where the voters are at the moment. Not just a poll but a country-wide prediction of seats. It put the Tories on 359, Labour on 211, SNP 43, and the poor Lib Dems on 13, technically seven down on where they came into the election. This MRP poll is being taken very seriously by pundits because when they it did at the same point during the last election, they made a prediction that was remarkably close to what we ended up with. Yes, it's ...
Ben Lauderdale is one of the smarts behind the YouGov MRP model this time and last time. Here's what he said on Twitter: Me: My super-rough rule of thumb is to look at the average sample size in each seat (about 130 in this case); see how many multiples you need to get up to 1,000 (8 in this case); and then concluded that if a factor is present in that many seats then MRP should be able to cope. Ben: That is generally the calculation I do as well! The understanding which MRP-based data can give about individual constituencies ...
One of the questions that's likely to be asked in tonight's Channel 4 environment leader's debate is about the target date by which the UK should reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions. In the summer the government legislated for 2050. In September Liberal Democrat conference voted for our policy paper Tackling the Climate Emergency, which argued for 2045. The Labour conference voted for 2030 (though that's not in their manifesto). The Green Party has gone for 2030, and Extinction Rebellion campaigns for 2025. Against these targets, our policy can look rather cautious. 2045 seems like a long way away; doesn't ...
Wed, 12:41: RT @JeremyCliffe: Von der Leyen's European Commission is on. Endorsed by a better-than-expected 461 MEPs. Priorities of the new "geopoliti... Wed, 12:41: RT @EPinUK: The European Parliament @Europarl_EN has given its green light to the new European Commission @EU_Commission led by Ursula @von... Wed, 12:56: RT @HaggardHawks: Some etymological stories are too long to fit into a single tweet, so here's a quick story about how one man's awkward en... Wed, 15:03: Peter Howell - Greenwich Chorus https://t.co/OeLy53CEhY via @YouTube In memoriam Jonathan Miller. Wed, 16:05: RT @pmdfoster: Ivan Rogers is wrong about Boris Johnson - @jameskirkup had ...
In stealth, along the avenue autumn brought out robes of bright decay above the showy salmon roses – hanging on – masking paths baked-dry in summer certainties; As sunlight mustered waning strength, against an easterly We braced, heads-up from time to time to watch the failing harvesters of light curl into their tracery of death, passing as October paled toward [...]
Hot on the heels of research by the Resolution Foundation, who compared manifestos and found that Liberal Democrats policies would mean 600,000 fewer children in poverty (see diagram below), we now have the Institute for Fiscal Studies hitting out at the spending plans of both Labour and the Tories. As the Guardian reports the Institute for Fiscal Studies believes that neither of the two major party's election manifesto "is a properly credible prospectus": Paul Johnson, the director of the respected thinktank, noted that the Conservatives' election manifesto in 2017 pledged more austerity and spending cuts, but in reality public service ...
The principal economic benefit claimed for Brexit is that Britain will become free to negotiate trade deals with non-EU countries independently of the EU, and that these will, at least in the medium to longer term, create greater wealth for Britain than we can expect from continued EU membership. How likely is that? There is no evidence to make that supposition seem likely. Progress on trade talks has been minimal, with no indication that deals can be negotiated that could begin to equal the trade we currently do with the EU and through our membership of the EU. Moreover, there ...
What to make of the YouGov/MRP election poll showing the Conservatives set to win? Here are some initial thoughts... 1. It's only one poll and this particular MRP model has only been tried once before. That said, it's a big poll, the overall voting intentions are in line with other polls and the one time this MRP model was tried before, it got things spectacularly right. 2. The more detailed figures are also generally plausible – such as the Conservatives winning over Leave voters but shedding some Remain voters. There's definitely a difference in what Liberal Democrats think is happening ...
The Independent has the article on its website – see link below:- This woman is fearless and her determination to uphold the rule of law in the UK has been without precedent, but the fact that she has had to do this shows how weak our democracy has become. My thanks to Roy Connell for the lead to this posting.
Today the Liberal Democrats will set out a bold plan to end rough sleeping within five years, spanning social housing, welfare, local authority funding and legal changes. Shadow Housing Secretary Tim Farron declared that "nobody should have to spend a night sleeping on the streets" and announced a package of measures to prevent rough sleeping, including: Scrapping the Vagrancy Act Introducing a "somewhere safe to stay" duty on local authorities to provide immediate emergency accommodation Abolishing Section 21 "no fault" evictions Increasing Local Housing Allowance payments Providing accommodation and support for survivors of domestic abuse Extending the "move on" period ...
Lib Dems respond to Health Foundation report on NHS staffing crisis Responding to a report by the Health Foundation on the severe shortage of nurses facing the NHS, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary for Health, Well-being and Social Care Luciana Berger said: This report is clear -there are serious NHS staffing gaps. The NHS is under significant pressure and there are serious questions about the quality and safety of care that patients are receiving today. Without doctors and nurses from abroad coming to work in our hospitals, the NHS is sunk. Yet Boris Johnson's plans for a Nurse Tax would mean ...
From yesterday onwards, many people in the West End may need to retune their TV if you are missing channels. This affects you if your transmitter is Tay Bridge, which serves much of the West End - it also affects the Angus transmitter that serves other parts of our area. Guidance about how to retune your TV is available here.
13 seats. That's what the You Gov MRP seat projection says we're going to get. Not what we wanted to hear. YouGov only spoke to a small number of people in each seat. Our campaign teams on the ground will have spoken to thousands more people over the last few weeks. They are likely to have a much more accurate idea of what is going on and I think that they will find these projections surprising. Seats changing hands. Tories gaining 47 seats; Lib Dem's gaining 4 (losing 3); SNP gaining 8 seats. Lab NO gains (and losing seat as ...
Responding to a report by the Health Foundation on the severe shortage of nurses facing the NHS, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary for Health, Well-being and Social Care Luciana Berger said:"This report is clear -there are serious NHS staffing gaps. The NHS is under significant pressure and there are serious questions about the quality and safety of care that patients are receiving today. "Without doctors and nurses from abroad coming to work in our hospitals, the NHS is sunk. Yet Boris Johnson's plans for a Nurse Tax would mean EU nurses and other health professionals have to pay to work in ...
