NAO report shows Government has made a dog's dinner of Brexit Responding to a National Audit Office report on the Government handling of Brexit, Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesperson Christine Jardine said: With the combination of coronavirus creating uncertainty for people's lives coupled with this Brexit shambles, we cannot afford for the Prime Minister to continue playing politics. How Boris Johnson ever thought he could get a deal by the end of July with the chaos behind the scenes in Whitehall is beyond me. Even he must realise the dog's dinner he has made of Brexit. Now is the time to ...
With the new BBC director general (and former deputy chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservatives) Tim Davie questioning the left-wing slant of the corporations's comedy output, there is an obvious opening for right-wing comedians. Step forward Michael Gove, who once fancied himself in this role. Louis Barfe will tell you more about A Stab in the Dark and has more substantial footage from it.
The recent establishment of diplomatic relations and business ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates raises a host of questions, hopes, problems, issues and consequences. Is it good or bad? In the constant shifting sands of the Middle East where tribal loyalties overlap with religious and ethnic rivalries it is probably best to say that it is a bit of both, and the need for a supreme balancing act will continue to be the order of the day. The UAE has at least partially opened the diplomatic floodgates and other Arab countries are expected to soon follow. It is ...
Today's etymological thread was inspired by the utterly bonkers song "बंजारा / Wanderer" in the Bollywood film Ek Tha Tiger. India looks at Dublin. Our hero, in love with the mysterious woman who is actually on the other side, falls into a reverie: So, my eye was caught by the second line, दिल मेरा बंजारा, Dil mera banjaara, my heart is a wanderer, which is repeated throughout the song (sometimes doubled, दिल मेरा दिल मेरा बंजारा, Dil mera dil mera banjaara). दिल dil means "heart" in Hindi. Where did that come from? English heart is obviously related to Dutch hart, ...
Fri 4th
18:45
Fighting a losing battle: why Lib Dems should back the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill
On Wednesday, Caroline Lucas, the sole Green Party MP at Westminster, did what she does best. She tabled a private members bill. The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill would mandate that the UK: goes further in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reflecting our historic emissions and relative capacity to rapidly decarbonise; takes steps to protect and restore biodiversity and soil; accounts for overseas activity (e.g. in supply chains) in emissions accounting; acts on the basis of currently available technology, rather than hypothetical future solutions; establishes a citizen's assembly to build consensus around specific policy actions. These provisions are the price we ...
In the year and a bit I have been involved in the Lib Dems, I have noticed one particular train of thought that percolates in the minds of many members. In their eyes Paddy Ashdown is a now legendary leader of almost Arthurian stature, who led us in a golden era as we swept back to relevance in local and national politics. Whilst there is much truth in this, this train of thought often doesn't stop there, but evolves in a secondary, more negative direction. "If Paddy couldn't do it nobody can," goes the refrain. In other words, under Paddy ...
In 2014 the Liberal Democrats endorsed Policy Paper 117 calling for a federal United Kingdom. It said that having an English Parliament would create a terribly imbalanced federation. It must follow that English Regions would be the constituent parts alongside Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There can be no part-federalised England: if one understands the West Lothian Question, one must appreciate the absurdity of replicating it any number of times and ways within England itself. The remaining alternative is not to propose federalism, in which case the party would have wasted six years, abandoning its aims and objectives. Unfortunately, Paper ...
Over the past few years, I have had to defend Liverpool's heritage at no time more so than the past few weeks as we have considered as a City the potential zipwire for the William Brown Street area. Those of ... Continue reading →
Our Headline of the Day goes to The Scotsman.
The Frank Hornby Heritage Centre within Maghull's Meadows Leisure Centre. As a Trustee of the Maghull based charitable group the Frank Hornby Trust I found the introductory video – linked below – from Sharon Brown (National Museums Liverpool's Land Transport Curator) very useful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bmwqnENVdA As a 60+ year old I can of course remember Meccano, Dinky Toys & Hornby Railways very well but younger folk may not, so the video may help connect younger generations with a huge piece of both Liverpool's history and the toys of previous generations of their own family too. Another view of the Frank Hornby ...
Fri 4th
12:33
Rewilding Britain calls for natural regeneration to be at heart of government tree strategy
The campaign group Rewilding Britain has called on the government to have bigger ambitions and adopt more natural solutions in tackling England's lack of tree cover. In its response to the government's England Tree Strategy the group says: With Britain one of Europe's least wooded countries, the current proposal to increase England's woodland tree cover from only 10 per cent currently to just 12 per cent by 2050 is woefully inadequate. We urgently need to see an expansion of nature's recovery across Britain to match the scale of the threats from accelerating climate heating and species extinction. The group calls ...
Yesterday the "powers that be" caved in to the indignation of the right-wing press and the words of "Rule, Britannia" and "Land of Hope and Glory" will, after all, be sung at the BBC's "Last Night of the Proms. " Sadly in the same week, a genuinley damaging move to Britain's reputation went ahead, and the Department for International Development, the record of which on helping to reduce World poverty is genuinely "world beating," was demoted to being subsidiary of the Foreign Office. This, in spite of the protests and petitions of the just about everybody concerned with the elimination ...
I received my first message since his election from Ed last Thursday. It was an appeal for money so no change there! It also used this very annoying computer program which inserts my first name at various places. If it is supposed to make me feel that the leader has composed a letter personally for me, it fails miserably. No doubt every one of the 118,000 members knows full well that it is a standard letter to all of them from a computer programmed to add first names. I wish our headquarters would stop treating us as infants and stop ...
Thu, 12:56: Alarming. https://t.co/VXValyCWl9 Thu, 16:05: Boris's PMQs performance was the perfect birthday present for Keir Starmer https://t.co/GXityApVZF Even the @Spectator has to tell it as it is. Thu, 17:11: An electric road trip through La France Profonde https://t.co/g1kq1z3Kvn Interesting. We have a hybrid which can go well over 100kph, but battery range only a couple of dozen km. Thu, 18:27: Thursday reading https://t.co/NzwVs3DDr6 Thu, 20:48: RT @LydiaMizon: The replies to this contain some truly excellent puns https://t.co/7gngNxVfhw Fri, 07:56: RT @jonworth: So you've all been missing #BrexitDiagram I hear. Honestly trying to do any serious analysis of this 💩 ...
We are all heartily fed up with this government but unfortunately we are likely to have to put up with them for some while yet. When we do get the chance to kick them out which will probably be sometime in 2024 and we need to be in the best possible shape to do so. Right at the top of the list has to be some level of cooperation with the Labour Party. Having spoken to hundreds of members during the recent leadership election I can testify that there is overwhelming support for this regardless of which candidate was being ...
Actually the most shocking part of this article in the Guardian is not that excessive secrecy about the government's Brexit negotiating objectives and a failure to get to grips with the scale of the challenge hindered preparations for the UK's exit from the EU, it is that the so-far-abortive process involved more than 22,000 workers deployed across Whitehall departments on the preparations at a cost £4.4 billion. They refer to a National Audit Office study, which found that at a time when civil servants across government needed to be talking to each other and working together, departments issued non-disclosure agreements ...
i) births and deaths 4th September 1975: birth of Kai Owen, who played Rhys Williams in Torchwood. ii) broadcast anniversary 4th September 1976 - broadcast of first episode of The Masque of Mandragora, starting Season 14. The Doctor and Sarah find an older console room in the Tardis, and then find themselves in a part of Renaissance Italy which looks just like a set from The Prisoner. Inevitably they are captured by the bad guys and the Doctor is made ready for the executioner's axe...
It is, as they say, never-endingly exciting here in Creeting St Peter. Anglian Water had visited about two weeks ago to do some work at the northern end of the village but, afterwards, a leak had developed in the centre of the village. You know how it is with systems, you fix one thing and a weakness elsewhere appears. I didn't think too much of it at the time. However, when it appeared to be getting worse, I thought that I ought to see if Anglian Water were aware of the problem. They've got an app, so I checked for ...
Residents across Dundee are being asked to fill out a new questionnaire to help key agencies learn how Coronavirus has impacted on all of Dundee's communities. Dundee City Council, Dundee Volunteer and Voluntary Action and NHS Tayside are working together through the 'Engage Dundee' initiative to collect information directly from citizens around Dundee. The purpose of the questionnaire is to learn more about how individuals experienced services during the lockdown period, in addition to finding out the priorities of Dundee's citizens going forward. The feedback obtained through the survey process will inform future local community planning priorities across the city. ...
