Today the Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss MP, was summoned to the House of Commons to answer an Urgent Question tabled by Crispin Blunt MP. This followed her written statement on Gender Recognition Act reform on Tuesday 22 September. Using a written statement means that the Government Minister tabling it doesn't [...]
Following work by a new local community organisation, Acocks Greener, of which I am an active member, Acocks Green ward residents now have access to a Car Club car, based in the middle of Acocks Green. The car is managed by Enterprise Car Club, who run a number of other car clubs around the UK. Car clubs enable residents to rent a locally based car (no need to get to and from a car rental centre each time you rent the car). For residents and families who only need a car (or second car) every now and then, they are ...
Ed Davey makes his first appearance as leader on BBC Question Time tonight. The virtual audience comes from Chingford, which is one of the places where co-operation between us and Labour could get rid of a notorious Tory. In December, Iain Duncan-Smith scraped home ahead of Labour by 1200 votes. We polled 2700 in third. Here's the full panel: On our panel tonight, we're joined by @AlokSharma_RDG, @LouHaigh, @EdwardJDavey, @devisridhar and @PeterBorgNeal. Questions will be from our Virtual Audience in Chingford – join the discussion using #bbcqt Tonight, 10:45pm, on @BBCOne. pic.twitter.com/0Qgn7Zzt1w — BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) September 24, 2020 ...
Thu 24th
20:29
Download the new Liberator free of charge to read what's really going on in the Lib Dems
The new Liberator - the first online-only issue of the magazine - can be downloaded free, gratis and for nothing. While you are on the Liberator website you can sign up for its email newsletter so you will know as soon as a new issue is posted. The magazine always carries a wide range of articles, but I usually turn first to Radical Bulletin, which has news about the Liberal Democrats that you will not find anywhere else. This time, for instance, you can learn who funded the two leadership candidates' campaigns, what went wrong with the selection of the ...
Vince Cable has written an article in the Independent with the clickbait headline: "When it comes to handling coronavirus, were the political 'bad guys' right all along?" He writes: As the UK contemplates yet again a change in direction, with more restrictions on activity to curb Covid-19, we should reflect on what is happening elsewhere in the world. Only a few months ago, Sweden was the heart of darkness: a country which, for unaccountable reasons, had gone off the rails, embracing weird theories about the pandemic, disdaining lockdown, resulting in the slaughter of its elderly population and ostracism from the ...
[IMG: Eight ways to step back from being a pushy parent] Parenting is challenging, even if you've enjoyed raising a few kids already. Each child brings new challenges, and it can be difficult for you to... The post Eight ways to step back from being a pushy parent appeared first on Ambitiousmamas.
There's been a lot of adverse comment about the decision by Hutchison Ports to pay Chris Grayling £100,000 for seven hours' work a week for a year. Critics point out that the firm with no ships that Grayling hired to run ferries in case of a no-deal Brexit has gone bust this week owing £2m. But they are missing the point. What Hutchison Ports will undoubtedly be doing is listening to Grayling's advice and then doing the precise opposite of what he recommends. So £100,000 represents excellent value for the company's shareholders. I may invest in it myself.
Current Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake Last books finished The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel Distraction, by Bruce Sterling Blood Monster, by Neil Gaiman and Marlene O'Connor Chronin Volume 1: The Knife at Your Back, by Alison Wilgus East West Street, by Philippe Sands Chronin Volume 2: The Sword in Your Hand, by Alison Wilgus Being An Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus, by Neil Gaiman Beren and Luthien, by J.R.R. Tolkien Next books Darwin's Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England, by Steve Jones Barcelona, Catalonia: A View from the Inside, by ...
The Lib Dems might have had a bit of a rollercoaster year along with the rest of the world, but we do at least appear to be winning over the support of the young (and we mean young) generation. Listen to smart, inspirational schoolboy Bruno Tollett, aged 13, explain why he's a Liberal Democrat and plans to vote Lib Dem when he turns 18 in 2025. Could we be looking at a Lib Dem star of the future? Lib Dem Voice has obtained parental permission to share this video.
The Authors' Club convened an online Literary Lunch today to hear Henry Hemming talk about his book Our Man in New York (Quercus, £9.99), in conversation with C. J. Schüler. Perhaps best known for his biography of Maxwell Knight — MI5's "M" — Hemming gave us a taste of the extraordinary exploits of Canadian-born William [...]
"A basic income will be the best, fairest and simplest way to safeguard the most vulnerable in society and care for those who need it." Christine Jardine writes for the Daily Mirror. Stephen Bush reviews two books on Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. "I've been threatened numerous times during the course of my career but now face a daily barrage of abuse - from being threatened with rape to personal attacks on my appearance. I live in the community I work in, as do many of our reporters. Yet we do not feel safe." Behind Local News reveals the onslaught of ...
So we are talking about the European Union again. Some might say we never stopped but the decision we make on this issue at this weekend's Federal Conference is one of the most important the party has made in many years. In doing so I hope those present bear in my mind that, although the overwhelming majority of Lib Dem activists and members are pro EU, that is not the case amongst the electorate at large. Conference fever, something I am all too familiar with, resulted in the adoption of the Revoke policy last year; a decision that no one ...
Who owns art? Who owns the space of art? And who dictates the meaning to be found within the space that art inhabits? I've asked these questions before - indeed, much of my previous research was tangled up with questions of art and ownership, and many others, much more learned than myself, have argued these points throughout history. But this is my little corner of the internet, so this is my little, incoherent ramble. Image Source: secretnyc.co Fearless Girl - that lovely (if slightly cutesy) statue I wrote of many years ago, has re-emerged as an artistic political provocation following ...
Most Liberal Democrats would agree that as the UN turns 75, the need for strong, multilateral institutions is as important as ever. But even the most enthusiastic UN booster is bewildered by the Security Council's inability to act in the face of human rights atrocities, pandemics and climate devastation. Please join the Liberal international British Group's webinar on October 12th at 6.30pm, as UN insiders and critics discuss how the UN can be strengthened. We will hear from the former Canadian cabinet minister (and more recently ambassador to the UN) Allan Rock who was in Jean Chretien's Liberal government; Aicha ...
It's been eighteen months since I last sat down and wrote a blog post here. Prior to that I made a sort of semi announcement about perhaps blogging more again, after a previous hiatus. Well, that didn't work at all, did it? Home Town Since that post we, as a family, have moved house once again; ping-ponging our way across the country, and have come home (for me at least) to the city I was born in. For a while it presented a kind of conflict - Going Back felt like going backwards and, in so many ways, tasted like ...
I headed across the Atlantic in the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts to talk about the US elections. For that I was joined by US politics podcaster Karin Robinson of the Democratically: 2020 show.
Thu 24th
11:43
Ros in the Lords: Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regu...
Sometimes, the most unexpected pieces of Parliamentary business attract a lot of comment from Peers, and this might be one of them. That said, a lot of people feel very strongly about it. Ros took the opportunity to press the Government in terms of some positive actions that might be taken... Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V] My Lords, in welcoming this SI, I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that this is a very tiny amount. Unfortunately, one of the impacts of the pandemic has been to go back to plastic use where we ...
Wed, 12:56: Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in "anti-intellectual times" https://t.co/erf62gXMdd Great stuff. Wed, 14:00: RT @michelzaffran: Congratulations to @Rotary's Dr. Tunji Funsho - #TIME100 has recognized him for his role in @WHOAFRO wild polio certific... Wed, 15:19: RT @pmdfoster: So @StephenFarryMP asks @michaelgove when he'll publish Border Operating Model for GB-NI trade - having promised it in July... Wed, 17:08: Interesting and somewhat surprising decision. https://t.co/ULcj5BYQd9 Wed, 18:49: RT @Keir_Starmer: I believe that a better future is possible for this country. https://t.co/P1Vxs1d1SL Wed, 18:56: March 2008 books https://t.co/p62AMrm8oF Wed, 19:14: RT @AhirShah: If there ...
COVID-19 has forced the cancellation of the traditional autumn Liberal Democrat federal conference. But instead, we'll be having a virtual conference...
I came across this website via a posting on the facebook Page of Kirkby Living Memory (Heritage Centre) and very interesting it is too. Having been born in Kirkby in 1958, lived there until the age of 6 and still having a relative in the Town whom I visit now and again it filled in some gaps in my knowledge of it. The post Kirkby-In-Ashfield - An interesting historical perspective of my original home town first appeared on Sefton Focus.
Earlier in the month was the monthly meeting of Bury's Planning Control Committee. This is the meeting made up of the 11 Councillors who represent the various wards of the borough of Bury. The committee determines planning applications for certain major developments and others where objections have been received. Councillor Cristina Tegolo reports: Bury Planning Control Committee met remotely and the meeting was live streamed. A social-distanced site visit took place in respect of planning application 65569/Full. At the Planning Control Committee meeting none of the submitted applications were refused but I commented on the following application: Land at George ...
"It ain't what you know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so." (Mark Twain) Blood letting is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to address illness, used for about 2,000 years. It harmed patients! William Harvey disproved its theory in 1628. Practice and professional endorsement continued into the 20th century via expert endorsement, "official" endorsement, public trust, inertia, fashion and lack of analytical thinking. How powerful expert ignorance, endorsed by the powerful, politically and socially, and accepted by an insufficiently educated and ill-informed public can be! And this includes current economics and its ...
Bury's third walk-in Covid testing centre has opening this week in Whitefield. The centre is in Whitefield Library in Pinfold Lane and is open from 10am to 3pm, Monday to Friday. All testing facilities are likely to be very bust at the moment. The Council is urging us all to only turn up for a test if you have symptoms of Covid: a high temperature, a new continuous cough, or a loss or change to sense of smell or taste. For the latest date information on testing availability in Bury and further afield, visit: https://www.bury.gov.uk/coronavirus-testing or call 0161 253 5515, ...
i) births and deaths 24 September 1939: birth of Maurice Colbourne who played Lytton in Resurrection of the Daleks (Fifth Doctor, 1984) and Attack of the Cybermen (Sixth Doctor, 1985). 24 September 1951: birth of David Banks, who played the Cyber-leader in Earthshock (Fifth Doctor, 1982), The Five Doctors (1983), Attack of the Cybermen (Sixth Doctor, 1985), and Silver Nemesis (Seventh Doctor, 1988) and also wrote the New Adventures novel Iceberg (1993). 24 September 1963: birth of Jaye Griffiths, who played UNIT operative Jac in The Magician's Apprentice and The Zygon Invasion (both Twelfth Doctor, 2015) ii) broadcast anniversaries 24 ...
Please see below a list of planning applications received in the last month. Please just let us know if you have any queries. Lawful development certificate for proposed alterations to roof to form a gable and construction ... 5 Sunnyfield Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 2RDRef. No: 65934 | Received: Mon 07 Sep 2020 | Validated: Mon 07 Sep 2020 | Status: RegisteredTwo storey side extension with canopy over entrance; Loft conversion with dormer at rear; Ramped ... 1A Langley Hall Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 3BZRef. No: 65925 | Received: Fri 04 Sep 2020 | Validated: Fri 04 Sep 2020 | ...
The deadline to apply for a Holyrood Ward Community Grant is 30 September 2020. Each year Councillors are given a small budget to allocate to local community groups and projects in their ward. As before, here in Holyrood Ward your three local councillors will all be allocating 100% of our allocation to local groups and projects, and we are asking anyone interested to apply. Last year we were able to support a wide variety of projects, from running groups, playgroups, parks groups, Clean Team Prestwich and projects in Simister village. If you, perhaps as a community organisation or just a ...
Bury Adult Learning Service will be offering a wide range of courses during autumn that are open to all adults over the age of 19. The guide showcases the courses on offer, including daytime and evening classes and courses that offer professionally recognised certificates, to support learners in returning to education, self-improvement or a career change. Subjects include health and social care, customer service, food safety, child care, computing, employability skills, maths, English, independent living, confidence building, wellbeing, and more - all of which are designed to improve learners' work prospects, life skills and mental wellbeing. In addition, more creative ...
You really couldn't make this up - first of all Boris Johnson negotiates an internal UK border in the Irish Sea, effectively introducing customs barriers for any good travelling between Ireland and the rest of the country, then he threatens to break international law by legislating to renege on this commitment, now the government has created a second internal border - in Kent. The Guardian reports that Michael Gove, the minister for the Cabinet Office and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster told the Commons that lorry drivers would need a "Kent access permit" to get into the county from ...
Many thanks to the residents who have highlighted to me the poor condition of the pavement on the west side of Seafield Road, in front of the Cherry Blossom Nursery. I have raised this with the City Council's Roads Maintenance Partnership, requesting repairs and am grateful for the very prompt response as the 'before' and 'after' photos indicate :
