This is like the John Major's final months when every day brought a new scandal. The MP in question, reports the Daily Mirror, is Rob Roberts from Delyn. I can find next to nothing about him online. In particular, I can't see if he went to an expensive private school or not. So it's too soon to say whether he will be made to resign.
The Conservatives think voters are angry about Dominic Cummings' behaviour. But things are far worse for them than that. Because voters feel humiliated. They have made sacrifices. They have put up with not seeing their grandchildren even if they live nearby. They have experienced the trauma of having relatives die alone and unvisited. The voters made these sacrifices because the government told them to and because they believed everyone was doing the same. We were all in it together. Now they find that the prime minster's adviser - a spoilt rich kid; a permanent adolescent in a T-shirt who thinks ...
Second paragraph of third chapter: There was no way of knowing why the state of Serbia and Montenegro should take an interest in the accident, but it soon became clear that this country had kept the two victims under surveillance for a long time. I have generally enjoyed Kadarë's work, but I'm afraid this left me rather unexcited and confused. The story is about an Albanian couple who dies in a freak car accident; we explore what they know about each other, and the woman's other loves; perhaps it's all a metaphor for the international flirtations of post-Communist Albania, but ...
"It's not that I don't like it, Yuri. It's just not exactly snappy is it?" https://t.co/C2in0hxV2E — John Bull (@garius) May 26, 2020 Ten weeks ago today, the Brussels St Patrick's Day reception was due to take place in the BOZAR. It's always a grand occasion, and this time was going to be particularly special; the evening was not only a celebration of Ireland's national day, but also a farewell to the Irish ambassador to the EU, Declan Kelleher, who played a key if under-reported role in ensuring that Dublin and Brussels remained tightly connected during the Brexit negotiations. Of ...
Tue 26th
17:22
Teenage driver sentenced after getting friend to hit him with pan in bid to fool police over crash
A frying pan yesterday The Evening Standard wins our Headline of the Day Award. I don't think you had to be Gideon of the Yard to see through this one.
So lockdown has reached Ambridge at last, just as the rest of the country is beginning to ease itself back to normality. The Archers is the only soap I follow these days, and I only got sucked in properly during the Rob and Helen coercive control storyline over four years ago. Before that I had dropped in from time to time, often listening in the car as I was driving to evening meetings. In fact, "Dum di dum di dim di dum" had echoed throughout my adult life. I can actually remember the shock that reverberated through the village when ...
South Glos has published a big set of proposals for new parking restrictions around the centre of Yate. Here are the proposals for the Ridge - we have been delivering a special FOcus to alert residents on The Ridge but please will you share with people you known who use the school or the shops or dentist, so they can comment. The S Glos deadline for comment is 15th June. We will be publishing the rest of the proposals on this site in separate posts in the next few days - you can see the whole package at southglos.gov.uk/consultations
Why are Liberal Democrats, despite having the ultimate political ideology, unable to achieve targeted success in the General Elections? Of course, there are many factors why we did not achieve desirable results – as we have seen recently in our 2019 Election Review. But here I am going to pinpoint only one issue which, as a party, we have ignored repeatedly. And I learned this from successful candidates from the two big parties at the last three general elections in 2015, 2017 and 2019, when this was a strategy to reach ethnic minorities. As I am a multilingual person and ...
If there has been any positive from the last few weeks, it is the growth in community action. Support groups have been set up in many communities across the country, all focused on helping vulnerable people and supporting those that need it. The Liberal Democrats have also been at it. Ed Davey launched the Coronavirus Taskforce in March, utilising the party's army of volunteers to make thousands of calls to residents across the UK, checking whether vulnerable residents required help. In Cheadle, there has been an incredible community movement. Helping Hands, a volunteer group, has assisted hundreds of residents collect ...
Until this weekend the Johnson Government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic can best be described as incompetent. They failed to recognise its seriousness in the early stages, were complacent in their attitude to it, slow to react, headed off on a wrong tack, failed to learn from the experiences of other countries, missed opportunities for collective purchases with the EU for vital equipment, exaggerated the extend to our preparedness and issued mixed and confusing messages. Mr Johnson himself set a bad example by not only continuing to shake hands with people who might have been infected, but actually boasting about ...
Since the anti-extradition protests began on May 2019, civil rights movement campaigners tried to achieve its means by 3 pillars: Within the legislation assembly, demonstrations, and social media (including overseas campaigns). Throughout the protest movements, they achieved some successes: The government was forced to withdraw the extradition bill amendment, Hong Kong was the focus of the mass media, and the USA took a number of actions in order to prevent China suppressing the protests by violent means. However, everything changed for the worse on 21st May 2020. The Chinese government announced then that they will submit a resolution to the ...
When prime ministerial advisor Dominic Cummings gave an unprecedented press conference in the rose garden at 10 Downing Street yesterday afternoon he hoped to draw a line under the matter of his allegedly breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules. But the issue is not just going to evaporate. This morning the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, [...]
Recently, as a new member, I became flummoxed when trying to work out what the English Party is, does and who makes up its committees. I wrote up my frustrations here at Lib Dem Voice. Having started with no axe to grind, I have become near axe-wielding now that responses have come in from that article. Members of as long as thirty-five years have admitted not knowing anything about the English Party and others have pointed out how it resists change or even blocks progress. Yet, there is an alternative and one that may help kick-start the reform that our ...
Mon, 12:56: RT @SonerCagaptay: Turkey's influence explained in one word: Bayram belt vs. Eid belt With @NicholasDanfort https://t.co/uZf0PQBq0d Mon, 13:02: "Healing - Hope" Statue by Willy Peters at the Heilig Hart (Sacred Heart) hospital in Leuven. https://t.co/T8SkVqGWyx Mon, 16:05: RT @CoNZealand: CoNZealand platform announcement! CoNZealand will be using Discord for socialising, Zoom for programme items, and Grenadine... Mon, 16:25: Question: All four of the 1973 Nebula Award finalists for Best Dramatic Presentation were released or broadcast in... https://t.co/3RTrc7ZUkx Mon, 17:11: RT @SakuraNoSeirei: For those who remember I did threads a couple years back pointing out how the more prominent TERF ...
Douglas Ross, the minister for Scotland, has resigned from the government over Dominic Cummings' behaviour. In his resignation statement he says:"While the intentions may have been well meaning, the reaction to this news shows that Mr Cummings' interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked. "I have constituents who didn't get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn't visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government. I cannot in good faith tell them they were all ...
It is time for the Lib Dems to talk about policing, or more specifically, dealing with crime. As a member of the Social Democrat Group, I agreed with much of what this Lib Dem Voice article said, however, the first comment also rings true. The 2019 Manifesto was very light on how we deal with crime and until we figure out how to have a constructive conversation about it, I suspect, we won't do as well as we can. This is not to say that the immediate answer has to be more tasers, as some Conservatives suggest, or paying police ...
A couple of locals had mentioned to me that they thought this new junction was, in the eyes of a motorist too messy to navigate and in the eyes of a pedestrian a long walk, so I thought I'd cycle through it to see for myself. I firstly approached it from Liverpool Road South and stopped to try to work out where a cyclist should be to cross over to Dover Road. I worked it out but had my reservations about it being a safe cycle route. I then attempted it from the Dover Road side trying to get to ...
Tue 26th
07:59
The clock is ticking for Ludlow as government says outdoor markets can reopen from Monday #coronavir...
Boris Johnson announced last night that outdoor markets can reopen from next Monday, 1 June. By then, Ludlow Market will have been closed for ten weeks. He has put in place a countdown for the market reopening. It must reopen. The market is at the heart of our town centre. Ludlow is not Ludlow without its market. It will not thrive without a thriving market. There must be no further delays in the market reopening. The countdown to reopening outdoor markets has begun. Ludlow Market must reopen next week if our town is to bounce back beyond coronavirus. A reminder ...
Lovely lilac in Fort Street - with many thanks to the resident who sent me this!
The UK government has put its Covid-19 testing target centre stage in the fight to eradicate the virus, but is everything what it seems? In particular, with testing for coronavirus a vital component of the test, trace and isolate strategy is the government meeting its targets? On May 6, the prime minister announced a target of 200,000 Covid-19 tests per day by the end of this month, which followed the target set by Matt Hancock, the health secretary, of 100,000 a day by the end of last month. According to Public Health England and the Department for Health and Social ...
