I joined the Lib Dems back in spring 2017. Unlike most recent joiners, Brexit was not my primary driver. Rather, Brexit was symptomatic of a wider failure of democratic and social liberal values, values which I hold dear, and which I saw ebbing away. I had to do something. Since then, I've campaigned for Lib ... Continue reading Lib Dem Conference →
Last week, I went to my first national Lib Dem conference. During the weekend, I was able to speak on defending the rule of law, an issue close to my heart. I also put my name in to speak on a motion about a green recovery from COVID-19 (though in the event, I wasn't selected ... Continue reading What I (would have) said at conference →
If you are looking for a cosy rabbit hole to disappear down, I recommend researching the possibility that there are big cats living in the British countryside. I have twice blogged about the podcast Big Cat Conversations. There was a post about big cats in Leicestershire and Rutland and another about an interview with the Liberal Democrat peer and former Cornish MP Paul Tyler. And if you want an introduction to the field, I recommend the interview that the head honcho of Big Cat Conversations, Rick Minter, gave to Howard Hughes for his The Unexplained podcast. What emerges from all ...
Leicestershire Conservatives are pushing ahead with their plan to abolish the county's seven district and borough councils. Opposing the Tory plans, the Liberal Democrat county councillor Michael Mullaney has said: "A unitary authority for Leicestershire, scrapping districts and boroughs like Hinckley and Bosworth and creating one authority for a large and diverse county like Leicestershire would I believe be wrong at anytime. However to undergo such a disruptive process during the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic is particularly mistaken. "Research has shown that large unitaries tend to make local government less local whilst at the same time there is mixed ...
Sat 3rd
17:55
We need to protect views of historic Ludlow and landscapes across our county in the next local plan
Shropshire Council is currently discussing its approach to planning through to 2038. The latest consultation closed at the end of September. One of the arguments I have made is that we must protect the most important views across the county from being disrupted or destroyed by sprawl of housing and employment development. I am proposing that the revised local plan designates and protects key views of historic monuments and important landscapes across the county. Ledwyche solar farm interrupts view of Titterstone Clee in this early morning shot One of the most wonderful things about Shropshire is its views. Towards the ...
Alien won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1980 Unusually for that era, the voting stats have been preserved: Looking at this in 2016, I commented:The results for Best Dramatic Presentation include a couple of "What were they thinking?" moments. Not as far as the winner goes - Alien is by most metrics not just the best known sf film from 1979, but the best known film of any genre from that year. It won by a good margin, 881 to 588, over a film I had not even heard of - Time After Time, starring Malcolm McDowell as ...
The desert has long exercised an almost mystical draw over Europeans, with its vastness, its beauty and its cruelty. As that great travel writer, Wilfred Thessiger, who wandered the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia, recorded, "No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the [...]
Sat 3rd
15:30
Willie Rennie calls for recall process to be used for Margaret Ferrier if she doesn't resign
What on earth was Margaret Ferrier thinking when, having had a test for Covid-19, she left home and got on a train to London, potentially putting at risk everyone on the train, everyone on whatever method of public transport she used to get from Euston to Westminster, everyone she encountered at Westminster, including Commons and parliamentary staff? And if that wasn't bad enough, what on earth was she thinking when she left her London base and got on a train home to Glasgow when she knew she had the virus and was actually putting everyone she met at risk from ...
Some MPs never get to ask the Prime Minister a question at the most hotly contested parliamentary event of any week. Munira Wilson has been an MP for just 9 months, and has had two opportunities in the path month to ask a question at PMQs. This week she asked him to work cross-party to get a consensus on the laws and powers around Coronavirus, calling the current measures "draconian." "Will the Prime Minister finally commit to working cross-party to replace these draconian laws to ensure the we both protect our most vulnerable and safeguard our liberties?"@munirawilson on how the ...
Liberal Democrat conference closed with me presenting the party awards, including this time a new award named in honour of Bertha Bowness Fischer.
Hello! I'm Mark Pack, author of both 101 Ways To Win An Election and Bad News: what the headlines don't tell us, along with maintaining the largest database of national voting intention polls in the UK, stretching back to 1943. The next general election is most likely several years away, but political polling of voting intentions for a general election is in full swing. Half-a-dozen firms are polling regularly, with a handful of occasional surveys from others too. Below the table, you'll find the option to sign up to email updates about new polls and also a set of answers ...
We know that politics has been difficult in recent times due to the pandemic, but having the Palace of Westminster physically fall apart around MPs may well be taking things too literally. However, that is the reality and the government only have themselves to blame. The Independent reports that work has yet to begin on vital work to renovate Parliament - almost three years after MPs voted to move out to enable it - with key decisions yet to be taken and a business case still two years away, while running repairs cost taxpayers £100m a year. Meanwhile, this historic ...
Sat 3rd
11:15Lib Dem Councillor Julia Ogiehor "devastated" at acquittal of men accused of racially harassing her ...
Last year we reported on Haringey Liberal Democrat Councillor Julia Ogiehor's description of being racially abused while she was travelling on the London Underground. At the time, she said: "One of them called me uneducated, and looked like I didn't go to university," Ogiehor said. "I had my hands up saying I do not want to speak to you any more, then one of the guys tried to pull my hands down and demanded I get out of his sight. "I recoiled and said please do not touch me, as he kept saying I had no common sense and that ...
Fri, 12:12: Everything is Going to be All Right, by Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 - 1 October 2020) https://t.co/f6Iik4V5t2 Fri, 12:56: Belgian milestone: A first trans minister and nobody cares https://t.co/VLvr11UXHO We as a country sometimes keep our successes quieter than we should. Fri, 14:01: RT @hanneblank: Student, in an email: "Anyway, I wanted to apologize for being kind of rude about feminism at the beginning of class this s... Fri, 16:05: Joe Biden is the dog lovers' candidate, says this ad full of former presidents and their furry friends https://t.co/BB5E6UqCyn Trump is the first president without a dog ...
I've always included the party's Weekly Whip round-up of news from the Westminster Parliament. But I've now broken it out into an email of its own that you can sign-up to here.
Back in 2010 I skipped this date. It was the right call then, but there are two broadcast anniversaries from the last ten years, a renegeration filming (which I will track going forward) and an actor who has made a second appearance in the Whoniverse. i) births and deaths 3 October 1960: birth of Kevin Eldon, who played Antimony in the peculiar animation Death Comes to Time (Seventh Doctor, 2001-02) and Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs in It Takes You Away (Thirteenth Doctor, 2018). ii) broadcast and production anniversaries 3 October 2011: broadcast of first episode of Sky, starting the ...
I am grateful to the residents who highlighted to me this 30mph sign on Pennycook Lane which has been essentially made redundant as the area is now all part of the new 20mph zone that covers the Perth Road district shopping centre, Magdalen Green, Perth Road Lanes and surrounding streets. I highlighted this to the City Council and the sign has since been removed.
