Govt making "dog's dinner" of Brexit negotiations Govt must move faster to improve NHS Test & Trace system Govt woefully underprepared to ensure every young person can return to school Govt making "dog's dinner" of Brexit negotiations Responding to news that the UK Chief Negotiator David Frost has stated that "significant differences" remain as the latest restricted round of talks concludes a day early, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs and Brexit spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said: Last month Boris Johnson asserted that he wanted a Brexit deal by the end of July. But far from putting a tiger in the tank, David ...
I was exploring the excellent Brumbeat site the other day when I came across this gem on the page for The Move:A band from London called "Davy Jones and The Lower Third" were performing one evening in Birmingham at the trendy Cedar Club on Constitution Hill. Their vocalist Davy Jones (later known as David Bowie) suggested to Trevor Burton and Ace Kefford that they should form their own group. Ace Kefford recalled; "Trev and I were there one night and Davy Jones and The Lower Third was on. They were like The Who with target jumpers, hipster trousers, doing stuff ...
"In a move that suggests its back to business as usual punishing people on benefits, a three-month suspension of sanctions introduced in response to the Coronavirus pandemic is coming to an abrupt halt." Mary O'Hara on the swift return of the blame and shame narrative to the benefits system. Writing in the New York Times, Alex Marshall has noticed the British government's unwillingness to help the arts sector survive lockdown. Anita Sethi says the joys of nature can seem out of reach if your class, ethnicity or access to transport make the countryside a no-go zone. "On the brink of ...
I'm delighted to report that today Fish published the shortlist for their Lockdown writing prize and my piece 'The Good, The Bad, and The...' was on it.
Let's hope that Ed Miliband's candid admission is right: that Keir Starmer is 'definitely' a better Labour leader than he was. Miliband's failed strategic approach, after all, helped put the cause of progressive politics back a decade. And as the Liberal Democrats pick a new leader, it's essential that those lessons are learned – for both parties. When 'Red Ed' snatched the Labour leadership from his heir apparent brother David in 2010, it was in the aftermath of a crushing election defeat: the lowest share of the vote since 1918 and seat numbers back to 1980s levels. There was resentment, ...
Thu 2nd
19:24
Local radio has excelled during #coronavirus but BBC axes Clare from the Eric and Clare breakfast
Our local media has served our community well during the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown. National news provided us with the big picture but what we have needed most is the local picture. Our local newspapers and local radio have given us that. We are coming out of the emergency in a better position than we might have done because of the strength of our local media. Despite this success, the BBC today has announced cuts amounting to £25m in regional broadcasting, including to Inside Out and local radio. BBC Radio Shropshire has fronted its breakfast programme with two presenters for ...
Most shares (not my own original content, also top tweet of H1 2020): Most shares of my own original content: Most likes and also most comments:
Thu 2nd
17:16
Looking back: How investing in our communities laid the foundations for tackling Covid-19 in York
Just over a year ago I was appointed to the role of Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities in the new Lib Dem/Green partnership running City of York Council following the May elections of 2019. I'm hugely proud of the way our team in York rose to the challenge presented by Covid-19. Lib Dems in local government (particularly those fortunate to be leading Councils), love nothing more than tweaking policy, putting values into practice, and pouring through budget papers with highlighters. We are no different in York. Little did we know 12 months ago that this effort was to ...
Current The Complete Secret Army: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Classic TV Drama Series by Andy Priestner Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens The Overstory, by Richard Powers Tooth & Claw, by Jo Walton City of Lies, by Sam Hawke Last books finished The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov De dag waarop ze haar vlucht nam, by Beka, Marko, and Maëla Cosson The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, by John Bolton The Extremes, by Christopher Priest The Wicked + The Divine vol 6: Imperial Phase Part 2, by Kieron Gillen etc The Wicked + ...
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Christine Jardine said:"The passage of Priti Patel's Immigration Bill is hugely disappointing for so many people. MPs from all parties tried to transform this Bill into something which valued human dignity, the needs of our NHS and the interests of British business, but sadly the Government rejected our amendments."Ending free movement will deal an enormous blow to our NHS, social care providers and employers across the UK - just as they are working to recover from the coronavirus crisis."It was especially galling to see so many Conservative MPs line up to turn their backs on ...
The govenment must look to green investment to create sustainable jobs Responding to the news that some 11,000 job losses have been announced in the past 48 hours, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:"The coronavirus pandemic has created an unprecedented economic challenge. "Behind these statistics, there are thousands of individuals and families facing real hardship, who will now be worried about putting food on the table and paying basic bills."Given the scale of recent announcements of yet more job losses, Ministers need to move faster on their economic response and to look into special help for those ...
Government making "dog's dinner" of Brexit negotiationsResponding to news that the UK Chief Negotiator David Frost has stated that "significant differences" remain as the latest restricted round of talks concludes a day early, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs and Brexit spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said:"Last month Boris Johnson asserted that he wanted a Brexit deal by the end of July."But far from putting a tiger in the tank, David Frost appears to be making a dog's dinner of the talks."With the impact of coronavirus already weighing heavy on UK business and the economy, we cannot afford for the Government to continue posturing ...
The ongoing debate over anti-Semitism within the British Labour Party plus Israel's planned annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank has revived old memories of a visit to Israel. The year was 1976. I was invited as a guest of the Israeli government. The reason for my invitation was that I was a young (27) American recently appointed diplomatic correspondent. The Israeli government regarded – with some justification – the bulk of the British foreign affairs writers as a pro-Arab write-off. But an American-born diplomatic correspondent at the heart of the British journalism establishment had the potential to be ...
The Liberal Democrat leadership election is seeing healthy debates between activists and supporters about the future direction of the party. There appears to be an emerging consensus from both Layla Moran and Ed Davey that the party needs to recommit itself to a clear centre-left identity. We Liberal Democrats are the inheritors of two great progressive traditions, liberalism and social democracy. Our party has one of the oldest political traditions of any party anywhere in the world. It can be traced back to the Parliamentarians and the Whigs of the 17th century. In the 19th century, our radical liberalism ended ...
What works well on Twitter can be counter-productive if used in political adverts. That's one of the snippets of wisdom in a Politico piece looking at the attempts by Democrats to find advertising messages which work against President Trump. Politico reports: "What we've learned form a lot of previous experience ... is that quite honestly, people who work in politics can be bad prognosticators in terms of which ad will work," said Patrick McHugh, Priorities' executive director. "You see a lot of times the videos that go viral on Twitter ... you test those ads, and more often than not ...
The Black Lives Matter movement has been making headlines since the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police. Protests started in America but have made there way over here and are happening up and down the UK. But, despite promoting equality, Black Lives Matter hasn't been universally praised. Along with a desire to expose injustice and systemic racism, Black Lives Matter organisations have laid out a policy platform aimed at defunding, and potentially abolishing, the police force and dismantling capitalism. These are bold and controversial ideas which have led to some people arguing against the movement ...
Wed, 12:56: RT @rovrumtankie: the damage matt lucas and david walliams did to young black/trans/disabled/poor/fat kids at school is almost unquantifiab... Wed, 16:05: RT @SpiegelPeter: From the "things I should have known but just learned" dept: The fabulous @sarahcpr (she of the viral @realDonaldTrump li... Wed, 17:03: Really looking forward to hearing @NathalieTocci @Judy_Dempsey Ivan Krastev @ischinger @MiroslavLajcak... https://t.co/yAyfW9lK00 Wed, 17:11: Bobby Storey: The IRA's planner and enforcer who stayed in the shadows https://t.co/3tlibnXOPM Great piece from @GerryMoriartyIT. Wed, 18:28: Perky 'Canada' Has Own Government, Laws https://t.co/B2VnzX9b6Q Located 120 miles north of Buffalo, NY, Canada i... https://t.co/bepHrPnxC4 Wed, 18:58: Picard ...
On the third time I went canvassing, at the age of just 13, I was sent to a complex of flats. These flats were mostly owned by people of Indian descent and I, as someone born in the UK but whose family originally came from Bangladesh, was confused as to why I was being sent there. At a meeting later that day, the senior figure who made me canvass that area, proudly declared how we had gone to an 'Indian' complex of flats and that I had performed very well in the role of connecting with this particular community. It ...
The decision to impose a local lockdown in Leicester has proved to be particularly controversial due to claims that if detailed local data had been available earlier then the rate of infection could have been checked much sooner. As we move into the next stage of the pandemic the data issue is becoming more and more crucial, and yet, as the Guardian reports, local politicians are claiming that it is being withheld from them. The paper says that council leaders believe that either they are not getting test results needed to prevent new outbreaks, or the results are incomplete and ...
Our Trivial Fact of the Day is a doozy. Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather cook for both Lenin and Stalin at a Moscow dacha. You can find it in a Reuters story from 2018. The Wikipedia entry for Putin tells the same story, referencing Victor Sebestyen's Lenin the Dictator.
i) births and deaths 2 July 1973: birth of Peter Kay, guest star on Love and Monsters (2006). 2 July 1991: death of Don Houghton, who wrote Inferno (1970) and The Mind of Evil (1971). ii) broadcast anniversaries 2 July 1966: broadcast of the second episode of The War Machines, in which poor Dodo Chaplet is unceremoniously written out of the programme. Starts with WOTAN demanding the presence of "Doctor Who". Ends with Ben being trapped by a newly activated War Machine. 2 July 2009: broadcast of Torchwood: The Golden Age, a somewhat bonkers radio play which brings Jack, Gwen ...
Thu 2nd
08:02Ludlow Town Council set to increase the number of market stalls and pitches from 20 to 30 #recovery
Ludlow Town Council meets on Monday night to discuss, among other matters, expansion of the number of trading pitches on the market in the light of the government's decision to reduce social distancing from two metres to one metre. Hopefully this, along with the reopening of pubs and cafes, will bring the town centre back into life - though we must all act with caution and safety and its will be a very long while before we witness the crushes of old on King Street and on the market. If the town council agree the plans on Monday, the new ...
Guidance for schools raises more questions than they answer Responding to reports the Government's guidance for schools reopening will include an overhaul of the curriculum, impose strict behaviour regimes and include a continuation of remote learning, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said: A raft of guidance is again released, but it is meaningless unless it is accompanied by robust scientific evidence to reassure the public that these plans won't result in an increased risk of Covid-19 spreading. The practicality of the plans also raise concerns. Dropping entire subjects and a continuation of remote learning without much needed equipment is ...
Many thanks to local resident Jill for these lovely photos of wild flowers in our area!
