PM mistaken in thinking he can break the law without consequence Tories' nasty plans for asylum seekers not the answer PM mistaken in thinking he can break the law without consequence Responding to reports that the European Commission has launched legal action against the UK, following the UK Government's refusal to remove sections from the Internal Market Bill, Liberal Democrat Brexit Spokesperson Christine Jardine said: Contrary to the belief of senior Government figures and their families, breaking the law has consequences. It beggars belief that Boris Johnson and his Government seem to think that not only are they above the ...
Two weeks ago, I was merely the Chair of a small, albeit perfectly formed, Parish Council of a small village in a backwater of mid-Suffolk. I had, in all honesty, only become Chair due to a friendly ambush by my fellow councillors, who had decided that I might make a half decent job of the role. They have subsequently re-appointed me twice, which might suggest that I'm doing a halfway decent job of it, although it might equally be that they don't fancy the job much. Two weeks ago, I "turned up" at a virtual meeting of the Mid Suffolk ...
Liberal Democrats challenge Government's "power grab" planning proposals Liberal Democrats adopt transformative racial justice plan BBC licence fee should be set by independent body, Liberal Democrats say Stalled talks with EU threaten climate action, Liberal Democrats warn Stopping no-deal must be the priority, Liberal Democrats say Liberal Democrats challenge Government's "power grab" planning proposals In a policy motion adopted today at the Liberal Democrats' Autumn Conference, the Party has warned that the Government's planning proposals will "disempower" councils and allow developers to "run roughshod" over local communities' wishes. The motion lays bare the risks of the Government's proposals, which the ...
We've not had any of these engaging videos for a while. This one also takes us to Goole's docks (45 miles from the sea) and to the Dutch River (a canalised outfall of the River Don) and the Aire and Calder Navigation.
Current Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake Darwin's Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England, by Steve Jones Gateway, by Frederik Pohl Last books finished "Jeffty is Five", by Harlan Ellison "Stardance"by Spider Robinson and Jeanne Robinson Barcelona, Catalonia: A View from the Inside, by Matthew Tree Palestine 100: Stories from a century after the Nakba, ed. Mazen Maarouf Next books Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, by M. Mitchell Waldrop Helen Waddell, by Felicitas Corrigan
Whilst London is emerging from lockdown having seen a dramatic fall in Covid cases, we would still urge caution to prevent a second wave in the virus locally, as lessons are learnt from overseas. It is good that we support our local shops and businesses, but to do so we need to continue to follow [...]
On Sunday the Liberal Democrat conference voted to make rejoining the EU a long-term objective of the party. The objective was hedged about with all sorts of qualifications - "at an appropriate future date to be determined by political circumstances, subject to public assent, market and trade conditions and acceptable negotiated terms". Mark Pack has the text of the motion that conference passed. The bit about rejoining the EU is right at the end. In order to make even this commitment, conference had to amend the motion put before it by the party's federal policy committee (of which I was ...
Bury Council has published an up to date Coronavirus Update (correct on 1 October 2020). The full briefing can be downloaded here. New information includes: Latest data With 367 new cases recorded in the seven days to 26 September, Bury's infection rate has risen from 165.45 per 100,00 to 192.16 per 100,000 and remains one of the highest rates in the UK. The four-week summary in Bury: Week ending 26 September: infection rate 192.16 (367 new cases) Week ending 19 September: infection rate 165.45 (316 new cases) Week ending 12 September: infection rate 92.1 (175 new cases) Week ending 5 ...
TSB have announced that their branch in Prestwich Village will close permanently on 28 April 2021. TSB say that 67% of their customers use telephone or online banking. Customers are told that the nearest branch they can use instead is Middleton. Although many people do have online/phone banking, there are people who rely on counter banking services. We lost the Royal Bank of Scotland on Bury Old Road a few years ago. TSB is also closing its branch in Radcliffe which will leave no bank in that town at all. Earlier this year your local councillors raised concern about the ...
Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority and the Council are launching a new campaign to make residents aware of what can and cannot put in our green bins. In the last six months across the borough of Bury more than 850 tonnes of green bin recycling has been rejected. Waste collection crews have been finding that some green bins contain all sorts of things they shouldn't do - household rubbish, plastic packaging, unwanted electrical goods, dirty nappies and even sanitary towels. Over the next three weeks information leaflets will be delivered to all households and a sticker will be applied to ...
Please see below details of the most significant roadworks scheduled for the Prestwich area in September 2020. For the full list see the GM Roadworks site here. Scholes Lane (near the Friendship) AND Hilton Lane (near Hope Road) – multi-way signals 1-5 October 2020 (BT)Scholes Lane (near the Friendship) – mult-way signals 26 October – 1 November 2020 (Electricity NW)Fairfax Road (outside OLOG) – multi-way signals 7-9 October 2020 (BT)Heywood Road (at the top of the by Bury Old Road) – multi-way signals 26-28 October 2020 (BT)Bury Old Road (north of Heys Road junction) – multi-way signals 26-30 October 2020 ...
Just to remind you, if no presidential candidate gets a majority of votes in the electoral college, the election is decided by the House of Representatives, each state delegation casting a single vote for their state. This has only happened twice before, in 1801 (when the election system was different) and in 1825 (where there was a four-way split among the leading candidates in the popular vote). In 1801 it took 36 ballots before Thomas Jefferson was elected; in 1825 John Quincy Adams secured the necessary majority first time round. Now that there is a strong two-party system, it's hugely ...
Lorely Burt kicks off the month for us. Baroness @LorelyBurt opens our celebration of this important month to all black people. We would welcome @LibDems to engage with their black community and send their videos to us. Happy #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackLivesMatter #RacismMustFall pic.twitter.com/0Y5cGBnMqG — Lib Dem Campaign for Race Equality (@LDCRE1) October 1, 2020 Please let us know in the comments about Lib Dem events in your area. * Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames where she is still very active with the local party.
Sadly, despite Lord Bonkers' patronage, the Glee Club didn't take place this year - on The Zoom or anywhere else. So I am still to hear my extra verse of On Exmoor Baht 'at sung. This entry completes are latest visit to Bonkers Hall. If you have been, thanks for reading. You can also read this diary in the current issue of Liberator, which can be downloaded free from the magazine's website. Sunday Call me a dangerous Radical, but I have some sympathy with the sentiment that Britons never will be slaves, so I have always been one to defend ...
I have been a principal councillor now, for over 36 years, In that time I have learnt a great deal about the way local government works. I also spent 17 years as a Welsh Assembly Member, for three years of that I was Deputy Minister for Local Government in Wales. In writing my first two novels, The Assassination of Morgan Sheckler (available here) and The Only Game in Town (available here) I drew extensively on the knowledge and experience I gained in those roles. In particular, in both novels my knowledge of planning law, licensing and the law around village ...
The Victorian Society has published its annual list of the 10 most endangered buildings. It includes the Brighton Hippodrome, which you can see in the photo above.Griff Rhys Jones, the society's president, says: Many of our Victorian gems have a depressing recent story. Often profit takes priority, and buildings are neglected until they have reached a complete state of dereliction. These buildings were built with great skill, and they brighten their urban environment. We know that restoring heritage of this kind adds value to an area. Never has there been a time, with the retail sector dealt another blow and ...
OK, you might think I am being pedantic, but the word 'virtual' carries some weight, so bear with me. The term 'virtual reality' emerged from online gaming. Players place themselves in an imaginary universe, and adopt a character or avatar while they are there. In multi-user games they interact with other avatars, without wondering much about the real person behind them. Virtual reality headsets take this one step further by providing a 3D fully immersive experience of the imaginary landscape. Virtual reality is usually compared with 'real life'; the first is a creative construct, the second is the world we ...
I regret that from 8 o'clock each evening I run out of energy, stop trying to do useful useful things or think about serous matters and switch to "comfort TV:" mainly the re-runs of Krimis on ITV3 or "Drama." My enjoyment of "Lewis" repeats has, however,been seriously diminished by the revelation that his side-kick, Sergeant Hathaway, in the series a decent chap, played by Laurence Fox, has in real life views seriously to the right of what the series portrays. Earlier this week it was announced that Fox is to establish a new political party, with the working title of ...
In case you missed it, yesterday's Party Political Broadcast is here, and it's rather good. Enjoy! Missed our new PPB that just aired? You can watch it in full below to hear from the new Leader of the Liberal Democrats, @EdwardJDavey. pic.twitter.com/zqT1y7b278 — Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) September 30, 2020
I have written before on this blog about the political technique of 'throwing a dead cat on the table', a metaphorical allusion to saying or doing something so outrageous that it distracts attention from really important things you do not want people to pay too much heed to. Well, if it wasn't for the fact that the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister appear to be deadly serious in their latest ideas on asylum seekers, then I would consider they were playing that precise game. As if breaking international law on the withdrawal agreement was not bad enough, these latest ...
Wed, 13:45: RT @pmdfoster: Today in a leaked letter Lord Frost concedes that EU will not give UK preferential trade terms to UK cars...but that is not... Wed, 14:13: RT @AmIRightSir: 'The Flintstones' was first broadcast 60 years ago today: https://t.co/czWCAD3oV0 Wed, 14:33: RT @Keir_Starmer: If the Prime Minister doesn't understand the rules, how does he expect the rest of the country to understand and follow t... Wed, 17:11: RT @TrondyNewman: your excellent debate tweets at 5am are cold pizza slices for my mind i did not have them hot as intended they are bad... Wed, 18:38: September books https://t.co/eXGUXXVdCm ...
Many Liberals have abandoned The Guardian in recent years mainly because of its increasing Labour bias. Part of this is the party's own fault by not being sufficiently intellectually rigorous but that is, of course, self-fulfilling – a lack of media coverage leads to a more enfeebled Liberal politics. My aim in pressuring the current editor, Katharine Viner, is to make the paper more pluralistic, not least because it would a shame to abandon the only national paper that does not have a proprietor, and one which I have read just about every day since 19 October 1960 – the ...
The BBC has the article on its website – see link below:- www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-54350046 This is a significant and very welcome environmental development in terms of powering trains in the UK and beyond. Germany already has operating passenger trains using this new to rail power source (see link below from 2018) but great to see UK rail companies working it up too. The post Hydrogen powered train makes UK debute first appeared on Sefton Focus.
Europe. It's still there. That's both a geographic and a political observation.
Thu 1st
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Whoniversaries 1 October: Hinchcliffe, Smuggs #4, Inv Enemy #1, Eye of Gorgon #1, Wedding River Song
i) births and deaths 1 October 1944: birth of Philip Hinchcliffe, producer of Doctor Who in the glory years of 1974-77 and thus responsible for many of the greatest stories of Old Who. 1 October 1999: death of Noel Johnson who played King Thous in The Underwater Menace (Second Doctor, 1967) and Sir Charles Grover in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (Third Doctor, 1974). 1 October 2008: death of Ian Collier who played Stuart Hyde in The Time Monster (Third Doctor, 1972) and Omega in Arc of Infinity (Fifth Doctor, 1983), and reprised the role of Omega in Big Finish Productions' ...
As we stagger from one set of rules to another the Government has brought in a very strict set of rules for the north east ( County Durham, Northumberland and the Metropolitan boroughs of the former Tyne & Wear. These supersede the "Rule of Six" and previous sets. Your household cannot mix with other households ( with exceptions for support bubbles, tradesmen, etc ..) Gardens are now included in the restrictions. Pubs, restaurants and clubs must close at 10pm . Close, not last orders. When they are open, table service only. With exceptions. Groups of people from more than one ...
I am grateful to the member of West End Community Council who pointed out to me last week the rather pointless sign to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Perth Road. As he correctly pointed out "... with the scaffolding up around the Art Bar, the footpath there is basically inaccessible for folk in wheelchairs/using prams, and must be a hazard for visually impaired people too. As this sign is basically useless (it points directly at the very visible DJCAD), could it be seen if the sign can be removed? Even without the scaffolding there this sign causes undue ...
As far as I am aware there are only two meetings scheduled at Blyth Town Council this month. Meetings will be held over Zoom Thursday 1st October , at 4:30 Planning & Development sub-committee Thursday 8th October , at 4:30 Full Council Meeting As ever, check with BTC to confirm details and receive a Zoom link if you wish to observe these meetings
