John Harris says the Tories are creating a cookie-cutter Britain: "Anyone who has watched what has happened to British housing will know what is surely coming: more and more Unplaces, in which community and collective purpose are beyond people's grasp because the physical means to create and sustain them simply do not exist." Polio terrified Americans, and in 1955, when Jonas Salk's vaccine became available, they snapped it up like candy. Sixty-five years later, reports Arthur Allen, this is a different story. Casting envious eyes on Canada, Adam Gopnik asks if the American Revolution was really a good idea. "Eliot's ...
The ousting of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 as part of an Anglo-American conspiracy is perhaps the darkest chapter in the murky history of Britain's involvement in the Persian Gulf. Mossadegh had upset Winston Churchill by nationalising the country's oil industry, from which the UK profited hugely, as well as having access to [...]
Current Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel The Conqueror's Child, by Suzy McKee Charnas Jerusalem: Vernal's Inquest, by Alan Moore Last books finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey A Boy and His Dog, by Harlan Ellison Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel The Maze of Doom, by David Solomons Jerusalem: Mansoul, by Alan Moore Next books The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman
If it wasn't bad enough that the Brexiteers effectively won the EU referendum by lying about immigration, they have now taken that agenda into government, proposing unsustainably restrictive policies that will damage our economy. However, their zealous pursuit of Brexit has come back to bite them. The Guardian reports that EU negotiators have rejected a British request for a migration pact that would allow the government to return asylum seekers to other European countries. This means that when the Brexit transition period expires on 31 December, the government will lose the right to transfer refugees and migrants to the EU ...
I'm a Federalist, and I'd assume almost all our membership would describe themselves as so. I'm also a Unionist because those terms are interconnected, however, it would seem to me several of our members in Scotland seem afraid to label themselves as so. Why? We've got a fight on our hands; 2021 is going to be tough but don't kid yourselves it's far from settled to be a landslide victory for the SNP. I'll tell you right now, there will be absolutely no equivocation when I tell people where I stand on the constitutional issue of Scotland. We are a ...
Yesterday Lutterworth's Church of Pain won the Leicester Mercury our prestigious Headline of the Day Award. Today that same paper solved the mystery over who put it up: Two teenagers, Aaliyah Louw and Joseph Blackmore, both 17, decided to build the structure after coming across the fly-tipped bricks on August 16. Aaliyah, from Lutterworth, said: "It was starting to rain, and we didn't want to walk any further and were a getting bored, so we decided to just build a small shelter for a laugh. "Then we just found the sticks that were kind of in the shape of a ...
As if you needed any further proof this government is ruining Britain, the Evening Standard reports that Ravens at the Tower of London are leaving the historical site to search for food due to a lack of visitors during coronavirus lockdown. It goes on to remind us that folklore holds that if six of the birds permanently leave the Tower then the kingdom, the crown and the building itself will fall. And the Standard says the Tower's ravenmaster reports that two birds are already venturing away to forage.
In addition to the obvious inadvisability of scrapping and restructuring the nation's arrangements for maintaining public health in the middle of a pandemic, the creation of the new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) opens several cans of worms. First Public Health England (PHE) itself. It was created by David Cameron's government as a result of the Andrew Lansley "reforms "of the NHS in 2012. These were hugely controversial, and bitterly opposed by Labour, who saw them as a means to facilitate yet more back-door privatisation of the NHS. Be that as it may, it is, or rather was, a ...
Timandra Harkness's verdict, writing in Unherd is coruscating; and boy, when she coruscates it stings. Her view is unequivocal, she states that OFQUAL's mathematical model for allocating A level grades was a prejudice machine. "Any one individual's achievements so far, or their potential in the view of teachers who know them, had less influence on their eventual results than the attainments of others who attended the same school in past years. It's closer to buying car insurance than taking an exam for which you have worked for nearly two years. Just enter postcode, make, and model and we will predict ...
This is a personal post and plea. Biggles the Cat went missing yesterday afternoon. He was last seen on Tollgate Road just after 4.30pm yesterday afternoon. He is a tabby. Short hair. Silver grey. Three years old. Slim but weighing in at around 5kg. His most distinctive feature is a tear on his left ear. He doesn't wear a collar but is chipped. If you live in the area, please check sheds and garages. My mobile is 07927 716163. Thank you. Biggles is regular in his habits. He sleeps though the morning and early afternoon. He then joins the short ...
Wed, 12:23: Cally: My people have a saying, "A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken." Avon: The life expectancy... https://t.co/AgeI2rI363 Wed, 12:29: RT @AmbDanFried: .@anders_aslund makes the case for fast-track European mediation to help resolve Belarus standoff without more bloodshed o... Wed, 12:56: Researchers Think They Solved the Mystery of America's 'Lost Colony' https://t.co/r91875QvO8 Less dramatic than man... https://t.co/GpKKCDuxkn Wed, 16:05: What Can America Learn from Europe About Regulating Big Tech? https://t.co/xLf6E99U3h Great on @MarietjeSchaake. Wed, 17:11: RT @thomasforth: Is the UK's coast poor? Yes, but only because of England. A blog post in which I share ...
Liberal Democrat Newswire #140 looks at one of the biggest, yet least talked about, risks to the future success of the Liberal Democrats.
My Lib Dem colleague Cllr Kris Brown has accused Liverpool Council of trying to "starve St John's Market Traders into submission". The Traders have been unable to trade at all since March although they legally could have opened at the ... Continue reading →
Merseyrail Class 508 EMU at Maghull Station Well it had to happen as more new Class 777 EMU's arrive on the Merseyrail system but it's always sad when long-serving trains go to the scrap yard. The link below (to You Tube) shows the first 2 Class 508's on their last journey:- www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K3h_fE1SwE I then realised I'd photoed one of the 508's that went for scrap on 16th August at Maghull Station back in June 2015 – it's the photo at the head of this posting. If you check out the detail of the You Tube posting there's a link to ...
i) births and deaths A cracking selection today: 20 August 1909: birth of Andre Morell, who had only one Whoniverse appearance as Marshal Tavannes in the story we now call The Massacre (First Doctor, 1966), but also ties in with one of my other projects in that he appeared in two Oscar-winning films - as Colonel Green in Bridge on the River Kwai and Sextus in Ben-Hur. 20 August 1916: birth of Bernard Archard, who played Bragen in The Power of the Daleks (Seocnd Doctor, 1966) and Marcus Scarman in The Pyramids of Mars (Fourth Doctor, 1975). 20 August 1932: ...
The Welsh Liberal Democrats have announced that Tim Sly will contest the Wrexham constituency at the Senedd election next year.
Residents will be aware that I have in the past posted some of the fantastic historic Dundee West End photographs of the late Joseph McKenzie on my West End Facebook page. A fabulous exhibition of Joseph McKenzie's photography opens today at McManus Galleries and runs until October 2021. Further details are available at www.mcmanus.co.uk/exhibitions/a-love-letter-to-dundee
