Liberal Democrats table Bill to introduce 'X' gender option on passports Government's destructive immigration plans will cause chaos and confusion "Outrageous" social care exclusion from Government's new Health and Care Visa Liberal Democrats table Bill to introduce 'X' gender option on passports Ahead of International Non-Binary People's Day [Tuesday 14th July], Liberal Democrat Equalities Spokesperson Christine Jardine will present a Private Members' Bill in the House of Commons to require the Government to introduce an 'X' gender option on passports. Christine Jardine's 'Non-gender-specific Passports Bill', supported by Stonewall, would "require the Secretary of State to make non-gender-specific passports available to ...
How, you will ask, did this ever get broadcast in the 1960s? The answer is that Kenneth Horne was seen by the powers that be at the BBC as a safe pair of hands and a good sort. "If Horne's involved it's probably all right." Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams' Julian and Sandy proved wildly popular with listeners and were saved for the end of the show to stop them going anywhere, much as Peter Sellers' Bluebottle had been on The Goon Show a decade before. Incidentally Kenneth Horne's father Silvester Horne was a Liberal MP and a celebrated orator. ...
Though the last post dates from three years ago, Rank and File - A British Cinema Blog is a welcome recent discovery. Written by an anonymous father and daughter team, it deals in the sort of almost good British films that the channel Talking Pictures TV has made it easier to watch in recent years. There are stills, notes on the cast and on costumes that crop up again in other films. The still above, borrowed from Rank and File, shows the tragic Joan Dowling in Murder Without Crime from 1950::She was perhaps best known for her role as the ...
Mon 13th
19:24
The more attention people pay to politics, the more likely they are to be left/liberal
The more attention someone pays to politics, the more likely they are to be left/liberal in their views. That's the finding from...
Mon 13th
18:29
New link for Bromfield Parish Council extraordinary meeting on closure of post office, tomorrow (Tue...
With apologies, I have had to move the online meeting for Bromfield Parish Council tomorrow night (14 July). This is because I had set the original meeting up on a free account, not my paid account. The free account would have limited the meeting to 40 minutes. The new link to join the Zoom meeting is https://bit.ly/BromfieldPO. The meeting begins at six thirty in the evening and will end by 8 o'clock at the latest. I'm aiming for 7.30pm Ludlow Farmshop has sent an explanation on why it will be closing the post office and village shop. I reproduce this ...
Responding to the announcement of the Government's funding to help manage Britain's borders, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:"The Tories' handling of their own policy of Brexit is fast becoming as shambolic as their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The sheer incompetence, waste of taxpayers' money, and continual deception of the public must make this Government the worst in living memory."The fact that even government ministers are warning about the disastrous consequences of their own border plans, not only shows how bad things are, but that there never was an 'oven ready' Brexit. "Ministers full attention should ...
Responding to the publication of further details about the Government's points-based immigration system, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Christine Jardine said: "These Conservative immigration plans will be a disaster for the small businesses that power the UK economy, just as they are struggling to survive the coronavirus crisis. "Key sectors like construction and hospitality, already facing enormous challenges, will face staffing shortages. The existing social care crisis will get even worse as there is so little time to prepare for this new system."Given the shortage of time and the mountain of red tape that everyone including the Home Office will ...
Mon 13th
17:34Temeside to be closed near former gasworks for a month from 20 July for essential gas mains work
We are enduring a summer of road closures. King Street will remain closed for the foreseeable future on Fridays and Saturdays between 10am and 3pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Julian Road is closed at present for urgent repairs to a sewer that has created a small sinkhole. While that road is closed, the nine-month closure of Sandpits Road for a complete renewal of all utilities can't begin. This is expected to get underway on Thursday. Coming up next Monday, we have the closure of Temeside for gas main works. This will be a 24-hour road closure between Weeping Cross and ...
One of the problems with this Hugo category (which has, thank heavens, been renamed to include the crucial word "Comic" - after extraordinary struggle) is that we are not always comparing like with like. For this year, we have two standalone stories, two finalists that are the concluding installments of long series, and a middle volume and a first volume. It's very good to see that the publishers of all three established series included all previous volumes in the Hugo Packet - in two of the three cases, I already had the previous volumes as well, but it certainly made ...
In 2011 the coalition government introduced a formula that would ensure that state pensions would henceforth be automatically protected against the vagaries of inflation. They introduced a so-called triple lock which would guarantee that the state pension would be increased every year by the highest of the following: Average earnings Price inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index 2.5% Successive governments have honoured this formula (which produced an increase of 3.9% for pensioners in April this year) and the conservative manifesto in 2019 promised it would be maintained for the following five years. But then came the coronavirus! This ...
How many Liberal Democrat councillors can match the achievement of Councillor Alun Jenkins of Wrexham this week of fifty years continuous service as a councillor in the same ward? Alun had spent 5 years at University in Bangor and was active in the North Wales' Liberal Federation. He came to Wrexham in 1967 to teach physics in my old grammar school, Grove Park. Soon after his arrival, he attended a meeting of the Liberal Party in Wrexham, to support Wilf McBriar, a local trade unionist who we remember with great affection for his utter sincerity and commitment. Alun was given ...
The Guardian reports that company directors believe only one in four companies are prepared for Britain's full departure from the European Union in five months time. The Institute of Directors say manufacturing firms in particular are unlikely to be ready for the end of the transition period with a lack of clarity on rule changes a bigger impediment to Brexit preparation than the need to focus on the coronavirus pandemic: Almost half of 1,000 company directors polled by the IoD said they were unable to prepare now for the changes needed from 31 December, with almost one in three saying ...
As a child growing up in 1950s England I was told that there was no such thing as a good German. Memories of the War were still raw and rowdier boys than myself ran round with wooden sticks pretending they were rifles for shooting Krauts. But as I grew older and read more I realised [...]
The councils registrars are now offering more services:WeddingsYou can now book weddings and civil partnerships at Kingswood Civic Centre and Poole Court in Yate.At Kingswood Civic Centre all ceremonies are restricted to only two adult witnesses as guests. At Poole Court in Yate, ceremonies will start from October on Saturdays only, with a maximum of 10 guests permitted in the ceremony room including: the couple, two witnesses, any children or babies and one photographer (as applicable). This total number of guests does not include the registrars. At both locations hand sanitisers will be provided and social distancing will be required ...
Sun, 12:51: RT @MandipGill: It's been a mad year so far but tiny good things everywhere #itiswhatitis https://t.co/EnIrxdFeJr Sun, 12:56: Paschal Donohoe's victory seen as a revolt against EU's 'big four' https://t.co/QsxOVeeY76 Fascinating inside story... https://t.co/F7ME9q8UeJ Sun, 14:48: Is Wayfair Trafficking Children Via Overpriced Items? https://t.co/SLnOaA7dxf In short, no. Sun, 15:35: March 2007 books https://t.co/SDwO7eyzZO Sun, 17:23: RT @MIA_NEWS_en: .@znmsobranie @SSNM_info @semm_mk strongly condemn hate speech and death threats against MIA's correspondent @MilevskaTanj... Sun, 17:31: RT @CoNZealand: Here is the video of the Q & A for the two bids for the Worldcon site selection for 2022. The bids are ...
The government's narrow base of evidence for its radical agenda combined with ongoing attacks on humanities and the social sciences is a worrying trend. Liberal Democrats can and should oppose it. Much as I was dismayed by the Conservative election win last year I naively thought that having someone like Cummings, interested in ideas and sceptical of sacred cows, might at least create a space for some creative policy thinking. I was even intrigued by the scattergun 'weirdos and misfits' job advert. I was wrong. Cummings' relationship to knowledge is far from benign. A Twitter take I saw suggests the ...
I often feel that this highly emotional subject actually hides a much bigger travel issue which involves us all and needs to be tackled if we are serious about climate change. The bottom line is that use of petrol and diesel powered vehicles has to come to an end and the sooner the better. More of us need to walk or cycle shorter distances. Public transport, when it becomes OK to use it again, needs to be significantly extended as motor vehicles start to be used less often. Parking of vehicles is a big issue, whether that be at hospitals ...
Mon 13th
08:30
Whoniversaries 13 July: Joe Lidster, Carey Blyton, Little Hodcombe, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
i) births and deaths 13 July 1977: birth of Joe Lidster, writer of A Day in the Death (Torchwood, 2008), The Mark of the Berserker (Sarah Jane Adventures, 2008), The Mad Woman in the Attic (Sarah Jane Adventures, 2009) and The Nightmare Man (Sarah Jane Adventures, 2010) as well as lots of other spinoff literature and audios. I find him one of the best New Who writers, and am a bit surprised that he has not yet written for the main show. Recently we have been bantering on Twitter about the 1970s series Secret Army, whose first episode was shown ...
Children of parents who lose jobs over summer risk losing free school meals New Govt campaign will fill businesses with horror Children of parents who lose jobs over summer risk losing free school meals Children of parents who lose their jobs over the coming weeks risk missing out on free school meals over the summer because of a loophole in the scheme, Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran has warned. It comes following a wave of job losses this week, with John Lewis and Boots alone cutting 5,300 jobs. The current government guidelines say you must apply for a voucher ...
DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL - WEEKLY ROAD REPORT Please note that most works are subject to change and late completion due to the restrictive measures in place following UK and Scottish Government advice that only emergency/urgent works and those considered essential should take place during this period. REPORT FOR WEST END WARD - WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 13 JULY 2020 20mph speed limit zone road marking and traffic sign works commencing Monday 29 June 2020 for 2 weeks to improve road safety for the higher levels of pedestrians and cyclists in the following streets in the Perth Road area: Roseangle, Magdalen Yard ...
