Nice to see preferential voting ('ranked choice voting' in US parlance) win out in an American court case: This afternoon, Judge Lance Walker issued his order in a court case that affects this November's Senate election. This comes surprisingly fast, just one day after the evidentiary hearing. He finds that plaintiffs, four supporters of Senator Susan Collins, have suffered no constitutional injury from ranked-choice voting. His order gets pretty tart with the plaintiffs, and is worth a full read, here ... Consequently, supporters of minor-party candidates will still have the option (as they did before this lawsuit) to reassign their ...
You have to admit that's a racy headline - even for the Shropshire Star. Naturally, it has walked away with our Headline of the Day Award. And the story beneath does not disappoint: According to villagers, you couldn't want a better person to live near to you. But Corinna Sayn-Wittgenstein, the ex-wife of a German prince, has placed the village of Claverley at the centre of a story that has fascinated people across Europe. It involves secret agents, mysterious offshore companies and the small matter of a $65 million gift from her ex-lover, the former King of Spain. And the ...
There are just 19 hours left in the Lib Dem Leadership election. Many of you will still be making your final decision on who to vote for. If you are still not sure, why not watch some snippets of the 47 hustings that have taken place so far? One event that isn't on the website is the Lib Dem Women event that took place last month. They have recently uploaded it on to You Tube and you can watch here.
As we wrap up the Liberal Democrat leadership election, I wanted to thank the thousands of people who have taken part in hustings, sent in questions to the campaigns and engaged in this contest. It's absolutely right that there is a robust process that properly tests our next leader, and makes sure that whoever wins on Thursday has been put through their paces by the party. Whatever happens later this week, I know that Liberal Democrats will come together and turn our hand to doing what we do best, getting out campaigning and standing up for communities up and down ...
As Liberal Democrats we all care about electoral reform. Nevertheless, we really don't make a strong case for it by saying that people's votes in safe seats "don't count" or that we have untold "wasted votes". That is of course one way to look at it, but completely ignores the reality that any electoral system will have people who vote for candidates or parties which aren't then represented - even with Proportional Representation (PR), such as those voting for parties which achieve less than 5%. More fundamentally, even under the current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system every vote counts (and I'd be ...
After becoming York's Executive Member for Children's Services in 2019, I immediately started on the task of putting together an improvement plan to deliver the best possible services for the future generations in York. But, eight months into the role, we found ourselves unexpectedly having to deal with a national emergency which would see both Children's Services and Education facing an unprecedented crisis. Our administration's response in York can be best characterised as converting what had seemed 'impossible' into 'possible'. Yet the contradictions, confusion and periods of silence from our Government, have turned the challenge of the last few months ...
The government's PR machine is in full swing with a carefully choreographed campaign to try to ensure a smooth opening of the new school year. All four Chief Medical Officers (one each for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) were "put up" (I believe is the phrase) on Sunday to to assure us that that the children would be, if not perfectly safe, then almost, and that keeping them out of school would be far worse for their mental and physical health than would the danger of catching the virus, which is less likely than getting run over on the ...
Every week LDV invites the leadership candidates to submit an article. This is Layla Moran's for this week. It's looking very close. Votes cast today could determine the future direction of our party. If you haven't voted yet, please give me your support to move our party and our country forward, together. I am standing because in my heart I am convinced our Party can do better than 6% in the polls. And we need to do better than 6%. Because let's be clear, Boris Johnson's right-wing Conservative government will not deliver meaningful change. They have failed to protect our ...
As conference season arrives we have a unique opportunity to pass a policy that in the 21st Century is part of the essential foundations of a more liberal future for our country – that policy is a Universal Basic Income. Supported by both of our leadership candidates and pioneered by the late great Paddy Ashdown the time for the Liberal Democrats to take the step and be the main political party backing a Basic Income is now. We know that Coronavirus has lifted the lid on the widespread financial insecurity that hardworking people and families have to deal within the ...
Mon, 12:56: RT @JosephineCumbo: One of Nigella Lawson's tips for living a happier life; don't prevaricate on saying 'no'. https://t.co/Oci5wpYppE Mon, 16:05: Wow, I hadn't spotted this near miss the other day - within 10.5 times the radius of the Earth. Not very big though. https://t.co/EaYJK0bCam Mon, 17:11: RT @MSmithsonPB: Latest betting in the LD leadership contest which closes on Wednesday. Chart @betdatapolitics https://t.co/WrQmvXFpwl Mon, 18:52: October 2007 books https://t.co/icHHf4sbjY Tue, 09:30: Whoniversaries 25 August: John J. Carney, Keegan Joyce, Disney Time https://t.co/P5LiuUL1Bq Tue, 10:45: RT @MissF_Lowe: Thanks to bubbling, I'm only teaching my A Level lessons in my classroom. ...
Ahead of the 2019 General Election, the Liberal Democrats made a welcome commitment to ensuring "better business". This vital policy promise, which sits squarely in the Party's commitment to an ongoing pursuit of 'radical reform', recognises that the current system is not working to everyone's benefit, and that firms should be have a positive impact on society alongside pursuing profit. The strongest of the policy pledges was for "a general duty of care for the environment and human rights": a law requiring UK companies to assess and act on the risks that they pose to, and thus be better placed ...
As Wales-on-line points out, the 2016 Senedd elections were a real high water mark for UKIP in Wales. With the EU Referendum just over a month away they received a sizable 13% of the vote in the elections for the then Welsh Assembly, they won seven of the sixty seats and had established a powerbase for their party unrivalled anywhere else in the UK. Just a few weeks later the UK voted to leave the EU and suddenly the party had no reason to exist. Will Hayward takes up the story: Fast forward four years and the original group of ...
i) births and deaths 25 August 1940: birth of John J. Carney who plays Bloodaxe in The Time Warrior (Third Doctor, 1974) and also one of the policemen who beats Alex up in Hugo-winning A Clockwork Orange. 25 August 1989: birth of Keegan Joyce, who played the main human protagonist Starkey in the 2009-10 Australian K9 series. 25 August 2013: death of Chritopher Burgess, who played the underground exile leader Swann in The Enemy of the World (Second Doctor, 1968), radio astronomer George Philips in Spearhead from Space (Third Doctor, 1970) and chief meditator Barnes in Planet of the Spiders ...
Numerous constituents have contacted me about the extent of weeds at road edges across the West End. Whilst appreciating that services have not been as normal through much of 2020 due to the health emergency, I was anxious to see this addressed and am therefore pleased to see this feedback from our local environment manager : 'As part of our planned maintenance and recovery programme, the 2nd city wide street spraying and commenced from 17th August and should take about 4 to 6 weeks to complete.'
