Highest levels of excess deaths demands Government learn lessons Liberal Democrats call for review into school exclusions Liberal Democrats: Government are failing survivors of sexual violence Government must step in with Green incentives to save the car industry Liberal Democrats: Record high of self harm in prisons shows extent of crisis Leaked letter shows thousands of care home residents being exposed to virus Highest levels of excess deaths demands Government learn lessons Responding to ONS statistics that reveal England has had the highest excess mortality across Europe in the first half of 2020, Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson Munira Wilson said: ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice
Thu 30th
22:24

Six of the Best 946

The Social Liberal Forum has audio and video recordings of this evening's Beveridge Lecture by the Labour MP Clive Lewis. Andrew Defty says the delayed publication of the Russia Report shows why reform is needed to preserve the independence of parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee "What I have described here represents a crisis of ideology—an abstract, electronic-media-driven phenomenon by which conservatives prioritised partisanship and wishful thinking over saving lives. But the results played out all over real-world bricks-and-mortar America." Nidra Poller asks why so many right-wing Americans have embraced Covid-19 pseudoscience. Giles Fraser says that beautiful choral music is not ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

July 31st is not just my birthday, it's the deadline for nominations for the party awards. This is your chance to nominate a party member who has excelled in their service to the party or local government. The process of nomination is easy – you just fill in an online form. If you have someone you think deserves to be honoured in this way, imagine the delight on their faces when they receive their award at Conference. It will be a bit different this year, but I do hope that something will be arranged to bring the winners together in ...

Posted by Caron Lindsay on Liberal Democrat Voice

A LIBERAL VISION FOR EDUCATION By Mavarine Du-Marie BSc (Open), Dip Soc (Open), Cert Hum (Open), Cert Bus Stud (Open) Cert HE Soc Sic (Open) Date: 18th July 2020 In my liberal vision for education I believe it should make use of the foundation that it was built upon, and the phase of institutionalism and [...]

Posted by Mavarine on MY LIBERAL EXPRESSIONS

I was dismayed to hear earlier this week that the second part of the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire is to close down for the summer holidays, and will resume in the Autumn. Given that the enquiry has, understandably, not continued during the earlier part of the lockdown, that it should shut down again so soon demonstrates an appalling lack of urgency. Part 1 of the inquiry, about what exactly happened on the 11th June, 2017 has already reported. Part 2 is to examine whose fault it was and in particular how and why substandard cladding was fitted to ...

Posted by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal

On Wednesday I posted a still of Northampton's greyhound stadium from a 1963 film about the town and noted that it closed the following year. You can see the stadium in this 1947 aerial photograph of the town from the south. It is the oval towards the bottom left of the photo and the curving line it stands next to is the railway into Northampton St John's station. It crosses the River Nene just to the north of the stadium. Right in that bottom left-hand corner you can see an industrial area served by the railway that ran from Blisworth ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England
Thu 30th
17:50

Thursday reading

Current Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens The Secret in Vault 13, by David Solomons Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel Jerusalem, by Alan Moore Last books finished Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, by Mary Trump Next books The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel East West Street, by Philippe Sands

Each week, LDV allows each leadership candidate one article on LDV. This is Ed Davey's for this week. As ballots open for the Liberal Democrat leadership election, we are endorsing Ed Davey MP as the next leader of the Liberal Democrats. We believe the Liberal Democrats need a leader with the experience, vision and judgement to navigate us through these turbulent times for our party and our country. The coronavirus pandemic leaves us facing economic chaos. The risk of a no-deal Brexit will only heighten those challenges. The fight against the climate emergency is ever more pressing. Our leader must ...

Posted by Daisy Cooper on Liberal Democrat Voice

I have today reacted with sadness and anger over a report which has placed Liverpool in the next to bottom category (out of 6) in a report prepared by Transparency International. It is extremely sad that Liverpool is once again ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?
Thu 30th
15:30

Virtual Conference

The date was 17 September 2008. I was on holiday with friends in Verwood and over the moon following what I had felt had been a successful telephone interview (conducted on a fire escape at the Fleet Air Arm Museum) for my dream summer internship. Serendipitously, my grandparents were on a coach holiday that week in Bournemouth, so while my friends saw relatives elsewhere in the county, I arranged to see my grandparents by the seaside. We met outside their hotel, took a wander down to the park to grab a bite to eat and then walked back along the ...

Posted by Alan Collins Rosell on Liberal Democrat Voice
YouGov

It seems Lord Bonkers has been playing a more important role in the Liberal Democrat leadership contest than I realised. The ducklings were harmed in the writing of this entry, so I shall vote for Layla Moran. Thursday I ring Layla Moran with the news about her radical stance, only to find her a little downcast. It seems the slogan Freddie and Fiona wrote for Ed Davey - 'I'm very important and wear a suit' - is hitting the mark with the Liberal Democrat membership and she is at a loss to know what to do by way of a ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England

Each week LDV invites leadership candidates to submit one article. This is this week's article form Layla Moran Today's the day! Ballots are finally dropping into inboxes and through letterboxes. I'm urging Lib Dem members to vote for me, to move our party and our country forward - and the momentum is with my campaign. Let's be honest - there is a burning need for change. At just six per cent in the polls, we are in sink or swim territory. Our country desperately needs a strong liberal voice to challenge Boris Johnson's increasingly isolationist and regressive Conservative Government. I've ...

Posted by Layla Moran MP on Liberal Democrat Voice

There is still time to have your say in the consultation on making the M60 bigger as it passes Prestwich, Whitefield and Simister. Highways England are proposing to spend up to £340 million on: – making the M60 10 lanes (5 in each direction) between Junction 17 (Prestwich) and Junction 18 (Simister). This is by using both hard shoulders as running lanes. – extending the size of the Simister Island junction, either through a second roundabout or a flyover and loop to the north of the M62. Find out more about the proposals here. Three great reasons to say NO ...

Posted by timpickstone on Tim Pickstone
Thu 30th
13:24

Action on Sign

A very large advertising banner has been erected over the past 24 hours close to the traffic lights at Balloon Woods at the top of Coventry Lane. This does not have any planning permission and so I have reported it to the council and asked for urgent action to be taken to have it removed.

Posted by David Watts on David Watts
Thu 30th
13:23

Boris Visits Broxtowe

Our hapless Prime Minister chose to visit Broxtowe yesterday, visiting Beeston and Stapleford. He didn't display the usual courtesy of even informing the local authority that he was coming. He was here to promote the governments cycling strategy, so it seems off he chose a county where the Tory controlled county council sent back half the money that they had been allocated for this, unspent!

Posted by David Watts on David Watts

In 2016, after decades of blocking all-Women shortlists (while doing little else that worked), the party finally caved in and accepted reality. All-Women shortlists work, we didn't have enough women MPs, and so we resolved to use all-Women shortlists. Nobody today could reasonably claim it didn't work – the parliamentary party is chock-full of excellent women MPs, and with them came the shared experiences of 50% of the country that we didn't have before. Our party is truly, deeply, better for the diversity they bring to the table. So why aren't we now demanding the same for BAME people? A ...

Posted by Roderick Lynch on Liberal Democrat Voice
Thu 30th
11:00

My tweets

Wed, 16:05: Terrorists and organized crime will be the winners of a no-deal Brexit https://t.co/eKmBUOwKAQ So let's start askin... https://t.co/kbVNV3D89N Wed, 18:26: June 2007 books https://t.co/UZDgllvSZk Thu, 01:12: RT @CoNZealand: The Award for Best Fan Writer goes to Fritz Leiber @TheHugoAwards Thu, 01:16: RT @CoNZealand: The Award for Best Fanzine goes to Voice of the Imagi-Nation, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas @TheHugoA... Thu, 01:17: RT @CoNZealand: The Retro Hugo award for Best Professional Artist goes to Margaret Brundage @TheHugoAwards Thu, 01:21: RT @CoNZealand: The retro Hugo award for Best Editor, Short Form goes to John W. ...

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Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

I have been championing the teaching of black and colonial history in schools for as long as I can remember and was a member of the task force set up in 2012 under Baroness Meral Ece on Race Equality in Education and Employment. Through learning about the impact and legacy of colonialism, we can forge a modern British identity, bridge past divisions as well as better inform Britain's dealings with the rest of the world. I had previously held a benign view of the Commonwealth legacy. Today Singapore students rank in the top 3 places on OECD's PISA league tables ...

Posted by Merlene Emerson on Liberal Democrat Voice
Thu 30th
09:00

Millside park & playzone

What do YOU think should be done to improve it? The Focus Team on Yate Town Council has managed to get funding to do it up - to replace the sculptures and sort out the bottom path. But what else needs doing? Yate Town Council has formed a working group with some other interested residents to work out what to do. Once that Working Group has proposals they will go out for consultation. But right now, we need everyone's ideas, however vague, however big or small. How would you improve Millside?

eUKhost
Thu 30th
08:30

Whoniversaries 30 July

Getting a bit desperate here... i) births and deaths 30 July 2015: death of Clifford Earl who played the police station sergeant in the original Christmas Day episode, The Feast of Steven, part of the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan (First Doctor, 1965), and also Major Branwell in The Invasion (Second Doctor, 1968). ii) dates specified (or almost) in-universe 30 July 1864: The Fifth Doctor rescues Nyssa from the fighting around Peteresburg, VA in the U.S. Civil War in the 2007 audio Renaissance of the Daleks. 30 July 1977: Most of episode 1, all of episode 2 ...

The third storey roof terrace overlooking St Laurence's Church and the Reader's House has been approved. It is an appalling decision. The town council objected. Ludlow's conservation committee objected. Ludlow Civic Society objected. I asked for the decision to be made by the planning committee. All this was to no avail. Planning officers approved the scheme yesterday. This decision, which in my opinion ignores court rulings about protecting the setting of historic buildings, was made after a secretive meeting by planning officers and the chair and vice chair of the Southern Planning Committee. That meeting decided to delegate the decision ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

Liberal Democrats: Tories' appeasement of anti-immigration lobby will cause chaos Responding to a report from Migration Watch criticising the Government's planned "points-based" immigration system, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Christine Jardine said: This shows how short-sighted it is for the Conservatives to focus all their attention on appeasing the anti-immigration lobby who will always want more. Groups like Migration Watch are still not happy, even though the Government's new immigration system will be incredibly damaging to the NHS, social care and small businesses across the UK by excluding people with a valuable contribution to make. Six months is nowhere near ...

Posted by Mark Valladares on Liberal Democrat Voice

It is a bit of a chore to struggle through all the double negatives in this Guardian article, but essentially the government have been accused of misleading MPs when they claimed there was evidence that mandatory voter IDs do not discriminate against any particular demographic group. As Cat Smith, the shadow minister for voter engagement, says, the Windrush scandal had shown how some communities have faced severe consequences when they had no official documentation: "The government continue to plough on with voter ID plans, turning a blind eye how this could disenfranchise ethnic minorities," she said. "The government have stated ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
Thu 30th
07:00

Food recycling update

A number of constituents have asked the position regarding the possible restoration of the food recycling service. The council's Head of Environment has updated me as follows : "At the present time we are unable to recommence with the re-introduction of food waste collections, due to having to utilise available staff resources in order to ensure that the other collections are maintained. Unfortunately, the requirement to ensure safe physical distancing into waste collection operations slows down the collection operation significantly and requires more vehicles, staff and time to complete daily routes. In order to reintroduce food waste collections, there is ...

Thu 30th
00:51

Retro Hugos in detail

Headlines: Full statistics here.521 votes cast.Tie in Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form! The first ever tie in the Retro Hugos.Close results also in Best Novelette (6 votes) and Best Fanzine (9 votes)Crushing first round victories for John W. Campbell and Margaret Brundage"City" wins Best Novelette despite fewer first preference votes than "No Woman Born"Disqualifications:"Old Man in New World", by Olaf Stapledon (Novella),The Book of Thoth, by Aleister Crowley (Related Work)Foundation by Isaac Asimov and Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith (Best Series)The Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form categoryWon the award despite being last to qualify at nominations stage:"I, Rocket" (Short ...

Thu 30th
00:26

Why I will #VoteLayla

Another year, another leadership election, another leadership election blog. Indeed, my first blogpost since last year's election. (I've purposefully not read that, or the 2015 one, before writing this - I shall do a compare and contrast afterwards!) Last year, I voted for Jo, although had Layla stood my decision would have been more difficult. In the final analysis, I would probably still have voted for Jo at point. Likewise, had Daisy stood this time, my decision would have been equally difficult: I think Daisy is hugely impressive for what she has done in St Albans and that she definitely ...

Posted by oneexwidow on the widow's world

Think tank The UK in a Changing Europe has new research out today looking at the political prospects for the Liberal Democrats.

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack