In the light of the coronavirus epidemic, the Federal Board has decided to put on hold plans for the preparation of a traditional party conference in the autumn.
The psychologist Professor Peter Bull talks about his research into the way politicians answer questions - or fail to answer them. In my day job, I wrote a media release that led to widespread coverage of Professor Bull's research last year. Here is an example from the Sun: Theresa May has answered barely a quarter of questions put to her - making her the most evasive Tory PM in 40 years. Boffins at the University of York studied the way Mrs May dealt with broadcast interviews and compared it with the responses of David Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. ...
Recently discovered records from the Court of Chancery cast fresh light on the formative experience in Charles Dickens' life. As a boy. after his father had been imprisoned for debt, Dickens was forced to work ten-hour days as a drudge in Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station. In a podcast for The National Archives, Michael Allen examines the new records and comes to this conclusion:Based on the evidence in the pleadings, I would now suggest that young Charles began his life of drudgery at the age of 11, and not at the age ...
Wendy Chamberlain, the new Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, is profiled by The House Magazine: In keeping with her varied professional career, Chamberlain has a range of interests she wants to push from the backbenches. As well as a passion for veterans' resettlement, she is a keen supporter of equal access to sports based on social background. ... "How many of our Olympians went to private school?" she asks, "How many talented children have we missed because they don't get the opportunities for sports?" However, if she became prime minister, the first "really mundane" thing Chamberlain would do ...
Liberal Democrats in Hull made the most phone calls of any local party last week, calling residents to help their community through the coronavirus crisis. Here's Matt Wilcock explaining what they've done and how you can learn from it.
John Stuart Mill, one of the founding fathers of modern liberalism, famously identified the Conservative Party was the 'stupid party', If that was true of the nineteenth century Tories than the the Johnson Tory party, dominated by the arch-Brexiteers, is surely the stupid party in spades. Before the coronavirus crisis dominated the news channels sharp observers noted the following:* the government has decided not to participate in the Unified Patent Court, which is not even an EU body;nor the Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) , a web-based platform linking the European Commission, ECDC and public health authorities in EU/EEA ...
My two trips in October 2005 were to the Netherlands, where unfortunately I had a car accident on the ouskirts of The Hague - nobody hurt, but I was pretty shaken and the other car was a write-off - and at the end of the month to Montenegro. (You can see me in Montenegro at 2:00 into this video.) At work we published the second report on Nagorno-Karabakh and I had an op-ed on Bosnia in European Voice which I am still rather pleased with. At home we had our twelfth wedding anniversary. I got a nice pic of young ...
South Gloucestershire Community Aid hub has a list of groups working to support the most vulnerable so please pass it on to anyone you think might need help: www.southglos.gov.uk/communityaiddirectory And please would community groups add their name to the directory by signing up here www.southglos.gov.uk/communityaid
Radix are a think tank of which I thoroughly approve. Existing to service the intellectual processes of the radical centre it continually produces thought promoting stuff. This is a guest blog that they have written to start us thinking about ... Continue reading →
Incredibly tidy book shelves The nation now has a new pastime – snooping on the homes of reporters, politicians, experts and celebrities as they speak to us on TV, not to mention those of colleagues on business calls. We have seen into living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms, even garden sheds, that were never designed for mass viewing. In the past it was intriguing to check the backgrounds of staged interviews. These were usually carried out in front of book shelves, where the subject had carefully chosen which books would catch our attention. Sometimes these included a eclectic selection of fiction ...
[IMG: Parking Sandgate High Street / Gough Road] Folkestone and Hythe District Council are granting free parking permits for registered carers and pharmacists - on top of those already provided for NHS staff and doctors. Free permits will also be issued to those involved in the volunteer community support hubs set up by Folkestone & Hythe District Council. Learn more on how to apply at https://www.folkestone-hythe.gov.uk/covid-19/free-parking Published and promoted by Tim Prater, 98a Sandgate High Street, Folkestone, CT20 3BYPrinted (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
I voted for Jo Swinson to become leader in the most recent election for party leader. I like Ed Davey, as a person and politician, as much, but felt a need for a new style or type of leader for the party was right for the Brexit period. I say this immediately because till we remove bias, objective reflection isn't easy, or understood by many. I am not promoting Ed Davey for leader. He does not need a campaign manager now. He needs a unity with this party and our country. This is not the moment for party politics, internal ...
Sun, 16:05: Putting Lipstick on a Bigotry https://t.co/rOvIMFILku Nick Timothy's book caustically reviewed by @garvanwalshe. Sun, 20:46: https://t.co/CApF0bVZK3 German state finance minister Thomas Sch�fer found dead Crumbs. Sun, 20:48: RT @emmafreud: OH MY DAYS THE MATT SMITH SAID YES. He's tweeting (via my account) for the whole episode! 1st time ever on twitter! FFS jo... Mon, 00:37: 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann https://t.co/kn1aHqDUrS Mon, 10:45: Jupiter is the most ancient planet in the solar system https://t.co/ZiBMJd46wK How the planets were shaped. Mon, 12:40: RT @POLITICOEurope: After showing symptoms of coronavirus, Dominic Cummings is self-isolating ...
Mon 30th
11:15
Most of the nation could not care less about us having a leadership election. So, let's do it.
The Liberal Democrat leadership election should not be delayed until May 2021. We will be going into a crucial election season without direction. Labour will have a new leader trying to rejuvenate the party. The Conservatives will be rallying around the Prime Minister. We, on the other hand, will be soul searching and asking difficult questions that should be getting solved now. How will we convince voters we're who they should trust to help run their areas, when we cannot even decide at that point what kind of party we want to be? The mood of the nation is not ...
Sunny Southport's Cricket Ground My love of cricket will be known to people who drop into the blog-site and that one of my Nottinghamshire cricketing heroes is the legendary fast bowler Harold Larwood – we both originate from the same district of Notts, Kirkby-In-Ashfield. But being a Notts lad exiled on Merseyside my cricket watching has been Lancashire based via catching County Championship matches at Aigburth (Liverpool) and Birkdale (Southport) for many a year. The other day, You Tube, suggested a video to me about Patrick Patterson, probably the fastest bowler of modern day cricket. I watched said video (linked ...
Are you involved in a group working in our community to tackle COVID isolation? Yate Town Council has found some money it can divert and set up a Battle Fund. Local groups can apply for emergency cash to help their work. Just go to http://www.yatetowncouncil.gov.uk/council-news/covid-19/ for the form and guidelines. Councillors and staff will turn applications around as quickly as they can. This is on top of the £4000 the Town Council has given to the foodbank so far. Town Councillors and the finance officers are working through every item of spending planned, to see what can be postponed to ...
Mon 30th
10:10
We have indulged the far right and the far left too much and for too long. Here's how we stop
Up until the EU referendum result hit in June 2016, some level of centrism, loosely defined, was considered to be a political necessity for any party wishing to govern. Labour had picked Corbyn as leader and it was assumed by almost every political pundit that this would prove to be an electoral disaster (they were proven right, eventually). Cameron had managed to get a parliamentary majority by a partial emulation in some respects – at least presentationally – of New Labour. Heading to the extremes was considered political suicide and this was a truism to which everyone in Westminster who ...
The Guardian reports that the deaths of the first British doctors from Covid-19 have intensified pressure on ministers to accelerate the supply of protective equipment and address growing fears among frontline staff that they risk catching and spreading coronavirus. The paper says that doctors' and nurses' groups have attacked continuing shortages of protective equipment - from masks to gowns - and complained that there was still confusion despite fresh official guidance about their proper use. There were also further calls to ramp up testing of NHS workers. They add that Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer, has told the media ...
Mon 30th
09:35How should we interpret the official advice as to whether a short drive to a walk is permissable?
[IMG: Footpath Stile - geograph.org.uk - 244071] West Berkshire Liberal Democrat Councillor Tony Vickers has written the following on a public Coronavirus Facebook group: I would contest the advice of TVP (Thames Valley Police). Where do these Regulations say anything about not using a car or limiting the distance one can travel to take exercise? ...There is some confusion about how to interpret the official advice on staying at home when it comes to one of the four allowed exceptions : to "do one form of exercise". As the Council's appointee on the Local Access Forum (LAF), which has a ...
I've been looking back at Liberal Democrat Voice past over the weekend, and jolly interesting it has been too – the archives are a glimpse into a rather different political party and, indeed, a rather different Liberal Democrat Voice. As for us, we're not the same people we used to be, indeed, the Editorial Team of ten years ago bears little resemblance to today's lineup. But something drew my eye, and so, in magpie style, I'm stealing it, or perhaps more generously, recycling it. The Daily View feature ran in 2009 and 2010, and was meant to be an early ...
I have been contacted by numerous residents in the West End who use the seven cars parks that recently had car park charges imposed for the first time - charges I have strongly opposed. The residents have pointed out that, as the advice is to work from home where possible during the COVID-19 health emergency, it seems perverse to charge people to park near their homes when the council has suspended car parking charges in several car parks in the city centre. The city centre decision is very helpful - to assist key workers - but I am adament that ...
