I've blogged on this subject before – here's my previous posting from 2018:- This has been my 3rd posting on the excellent Museum of Liverpool exhibition – Liverpool on Wheels – curated by Land Transport Curator Sharon Brown. If you can go have a gander at it, I think you'll agree it's excellent Click on the photos to enlarge them
Today the Liberal Democrats have called on the Health Secretary to announce the public health grant amidst the Coronavirus crisis. Having failed to tell local councils how much the public health grant will be, the Tories have made it all but impossible for councils to ensure our communities have proper healthcare. Even if it was business as usual this would be shameful, but with the Coronavirus it is nothing short of an abdication of duty. Public health information is vital to lowering the Coronavirus peak, but even more alarming is the inability for local councils to try and address the ...
The second part of the walk saw me exploring the south of the village behind the Arkwright Houses before reaching, inevitably, Arkwright's Mill. Now see part 1.
This is the first of three articles on housing Food and shelter are essential to survival and yet according to the latest Government figures, collected in the autumn of 2019 and published in February 2020, 4,266 people are estimated to be sleeping rough each night in this the 5th largest economy in the world. The Charity Crisis believes it may be nearer to 8,000. According to the charity Shelter three million new social homes must be built in England over the next 20 years of which 1.2 million homes are needed for younger families who cannot afford to buy and ...
Mon 9th
17:17
What's it like being a councillor and how do you get to be one? Never Mind The Bar Charts S2/E4
In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talk with Councillor Anton Georgiou from Brent, who won a spectacular by-election victory in January and is now getting to enjoy being a councillor. What's it like? How did he win? And how can others emulate him? Listen to find out... Show notes Anton Georgiou's by-election victory. His tweets about being a councillor. The importance of pointing at potholes. Daniel Brown, former Lib Dem councillor for Alperton and his autocorrection tip. Siobhan Benita's campaign to be Mayor of London. Stephen Robinson on what it's like to be a ...
Second paragraph of third story ("Silent in Gehenna", by Harlan Ellison):Years later, the matron who discovered him on the porch remarked, looking into his eyes was like staring down a hall with empty mirrors.I came across this when researching science fiction visions of the year 2020. It is a 1974 anthology of eight stories, six very big names on the harder side of SF - Ben Bova, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, Poul Anderson, A.E. van Vogt and Norman Spinrad; and two authors who I had not previously heard of, Dian Girard (though it turns out that as J.D. Crayne, she ...
The first of a number of posts advertising spring clean events around town - helping clean up our town. Timewise the first one is Brimsham Park / Ladden Gardens, Sun15th March Meet 3pm by the gate to the play area in the park. Yate Pilgrim Group is organising it. The town council are lending pickers and recycling bags. Come along and lend a hand or two. We've got more to advertise in the next couple of weeks. If you're holding one and want more publicity, then please tell us chriswillmore@blueyonder.co.uk.
[IMG: Erasmus+ Logo] It would not be an exaggeration to say that Britain does not have the most glittering of reputations on the Continent for its ability to adapt to the local lingo. Indeed, when I holiday in France every year, one of the most frequent remarks people make to me is "Wow, your French is very good! We don't often get many English people speaking our language". I'm always a touch embarrassed by how poor British people are at speaking foreign languages; it's become a bit of a national stereotype that les Anglais generally can't speak the language of ...
So, Layla Moran has announced her candidacy for the Lib Dem Leadership in advance of the Party's Spring Conference at the coming weekend. I am frankly saddened by this. The Party has deliberately put back the formal elements of the ... Continue reading →
Mon 9th
11:27
Despite winning the election, conservative ideology is dying - yet so is liberalism at the same time...
There's a very good article by Ed West on Unherd today called "Why Conservatism is Doomed" which I highly recommend. The thesis of the piece is that despite winning the general election, conservatism is dying as an ideology as liberals take over more and more of the establishment. I agree with some of the points in it and even the stuff I disagree with made me think. Where I most disagree is that the crisis of conservatism does not equal the coming triumph of liberalism – I think it signals the deepening of a sort of ideological nihilism that is ...
Sun, 20:16: The Aachen Memorandum, by Andrew Roberts https://t.co/81FTTGukTt Sun, 20:38: RT @NotAdric: This book (I read the revised edition a few years ago) is absolutely crackers. Sun, 20:58: Right-wing historian Andrew Roberts wrote this book in 1995, with a referendum twenty years later (2015 rather than... https://t.co/mJ0HEYhpLq Sun, 22:05: Article about Edith Bratt and Tolkien now updated: https://t.co/lgYV5vyAGh https://t.co/51WDAtj62V Mon, 08:56: RT @cmioffice: We are now looking for an EU Relations Manager for our office in Brussels. For more information and to apply please go to: h... Mon, 09:35: Nice to see @cboussClaire @APCOWorldwide @APCOBXLInsider getting a shout in ...
A few days after the general election, in a state of numbness I'm sure you are all familiar with, my thoughts were on our former leader, Jo Swinson. I admit, I was not a full-throated supporter of Swinson's. I believed she would have problems building the relationships and alliances essential to stopping Brexit, so backed Ed in the contest. In my opinion, she had an opportunity to set Scotland on a more positive course against independence. The real north, as I described it last week, could have begun to work more closely to tackle our unique crises. We would have ...
It appears that for the Welsh Conservatives, ending the 'Welsh Assembly gravy train' is their equivalent of Trump draining the swamp. Except that in Trump's case he has actually widened and deepened that swamp with his own brand of politics. Nevertheless, I expect that the Welsh Tory's pledge to cut the cost of politics by reducing the number of ministers, freezing the Commission budget and ruling out any increase in the number of politicians will have have some resonance with voters. It is not good enough just to condemn them out-of-hand for gesture politics, though this is undoubtedly what it ...
