I'm afraid that I've always assumed that, when Conservatives talk about immigration, what they really mean is allowing white people to flow in and out relatively easily, compared to anyone else. Of course, in more recent years, that former group became more restricted - poorer Europeans weren't very welcome either. Having made it as difficult as possible for poor people from developing and under-developed countries to come here by means of expensive visas, restricted access to the application process and, in truth, a system which favoured the wealthy, they turned to Europe. There were, as the likes of Farage said, ...
Prime Minister "not ambitious enough" when it comes to renewables The Liberal Democrats are calling for an investment of £150 billion over the next three years to drive a green economic recovery. The call comes as the Prime Minister is set to unveil plans to invest just £160 million in wind turbines in a speech at the Conservative Party Conference. Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: People across the UK are worried about the planet and for their children's futures. We need a Government that leads from the front when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. But ...
The latest video in Jim Butler's latest Hidden Histories series looks at Leicester and Leicestershire in the First English Civil War and is split into three parts. Here is the first.
Tue 6th
21:24
Over 100 East Midlands Lib Dem councillors back campaign to save boroughs and districts
As part of the campaign to defend district and borough councils, more than 100 Liberal Democrat councillors from the East Midlands have signed a letter to Robert Jenrick, the local government secretary. Derbyshire Live quotes from the letter: "We believe that these proposals are fundamentally wrong in every respect. They would mean that all the councils involved would spend the next two and a half years arguing over and concentrating on, the expensive business of large-scale closure, merger, defining and reapplying for jobs, redundancy and closing down sites. This is the last thing we need when tackling Covid-19, and its ...
Good news from Shropshire: the Middle Marches Community Land Trust has succeeded in raising the money to buy Norbury Hill - I blogged about this bid the other day. A member of the trust told the Shropshire Star: "We are completely astonished really - this was not something we expected. We heard on Thursday that it was all going to happen and we are sharing the land with one of our supporters, who pledged the other half. The process of buying the land is under way. "What really made a difference to me was when people actually came up to ...
Tom Brake, who was Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington in London between 1997 and 2019, was named today as the new democracy of Unlock Democracy. This pressure group declares on its website: We want a democratic society that centres equality and justice for all, and a political system that reflects and upholds the values we collectively share. We want our democratic society protected by a new and codified constitution that is built and owned by the people.
Former Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake has a new role, as Director of constitutional and political reform campaigners Unlock Democracy.
1. Multitasking is a benefit and a hindrance It was hugely enabling to be able to attend lively, stimulating debates and hear from the great and the good on how we can make Britain better for everyone, whilst in my slippers and nursing my baby. It meant that my other half didn't have to manage our toddler on his own for a weekend and we could still enjoy our family meals and bedtimes together. The downside was that we still had family meals and bedtimes: my ability to get fully immersed in conference life, meeting people, attending sessions, ruminating on ...
Started May 2008 with a long weekend at my sister's in France; later on travelled to Montenegro and Albania, and then for a day to Belfast. Plenty of daytime travel and easily consumed reading meant I got through 39 books that month: Non-fiction 7 (YTD 25) About Time vol 6: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1985-1999, by Tat Wood Kosova Express: A Journey in Wartime, by James Pettifer Contested Island: Ireland 1460-1630, by S.J. Connolly Letter from America, 1946-2004, by Alistair Cooke Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus and Sri Lanka, by Sumantra Bose Cyprus, by Christopher Hitchens A ...
It is self-evident we have a calamitous Prime Minister; we spelt out the warning ourselves. Johnson presides over a cabinet of mediocre yes-men not selected for ability, but for their Brexit purity and for their low risk in upstaging Johnson with an unexpected whiff of competency. The Tory conference is a time to take stock. Even amongst Conservative members there are signs of queasiness: in a recent ConservativeHome sounding of party members, only Gavin Williamson outflanks Johnson for dissatisfaction. Less than 10 months ago Jo Swinson clearly upbraided Johnson for having 'dragged the office of Prime Minister through the mud'. ...
Ever since Donald Trump entered the White House in January 2017 he has kept the world agog by his singular attitude to the presidency. He determined to communicate with the electorate — and especially his fan base — directly, through the medium of Twitter. We journalists and commentators have been obliged to follow his tweets [...]
The Liberal Democrats are calling for an investment of £150 billion over the next three years to drive a green economic recovery. The call comes as the Prime Minister is set to unveil plans to invest just £160 million in wind turbines in a speech at the Conservative Party Conference. Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said:"People across the UK are worried about the planet and for their children's futures. We need a Government that leads from the front when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. But just a few years ago Boris Johnson claimed a wind turbine ...
My local party proposed an amendment to the Conference UBI motion setting a medium-term aspiration. We proposed that the UBI level together with existing working-age benefits should equal either the Social Metrics Commission or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation calculations of what a sufficient income for a person is to meet their basic requirements. It was not selected for debate. The reason given was that the Federal Conference Committee thought that it could restrict the implementation options to be considered by the Federal Policy Committee! This seems to me to be an odd reason. I think Conference should have been given ...
The benefit of a big butt My water butt has served me very well over the summer with no need to resort to the tap to water my plants.The recent dry spell had almost emptied the butt but this weekend's downpours have filled it back up to the top. Only disadvantage is that I was [...]
Mon, 12:06: RT @LaurenceBroers: Week 2 of a new Armenian-Azerbaijani war: where are we? No question of "clashes that might lead to war" - this already... Mon, 12:56: The importance of being loopy https://t.co/f6sqhfR2Cd What's special about Redditch. Mon, 16:05: The longform patriarchs, and their accomplices https://t.co/q63mNLEugP Imagine "a future literary landscape with a wide range of totally inclusive novels on our bookshelves, on our reading lists, in our homes, in the imagination of each new generation. Every genre, every kind o... Mon, 16:16: RT @arzugeybulla: I am putting aside my journalism hat and sharing with you this piece i ...
A study of fake news around postal voting in the US (mail-in voting in American parlance) has found that social media is not the main culprit: Polling conducted in September 2020 suggests that nearly half of Republicans agree with the president that election fraud is a major concern associated with expanded mail-in voting during the pandemic. Few Democrats share that belief. Despite the consensus among independent academic and journalistic investigations that voter fraud is rare and extremely unlikely to determine a national election, tens of millions of Americans believe the opposite. This is a study of the disinformation campaign that ...
In his speech to the Tory Party conference, Rishi Sunak made a bold declaration: "We share the same values. The Conservative Party and the country." For a start the 57% of voters who didn't opt for the Conservatives last December will disagree. But his statement also raises a key question: what are the values that today's Conservative Party stand for? Anyone who takes a moment to look at Johnson's Conservatives can see that the party of statecraft, the rule of law and fiscal conservatism no longer exists. The rest of Sunak's speech was surprisingly brief and light on policy. One ...
I am not clear exactly how much the UK Government's 'world-beating' test and trace system for England is costing, or even if the private company they are employing to do it is responsible for the latest cock-up, whereby they misplaced 16,000 tests and put goodness knows how many people at risk through not being informed of their encounter with the virus, but my lack of surprise at what happened certainly sums up the competence of this government. The Guardian reports that the data error, which led to 15,841 positive tests being left off the official daily figures, means than 50,000 ...
We need to focus on how we handle issues of taxation. Opinion polls now show, for the first time in decades, that more voters favour raising taxes than cutting them. That does not mean, of course, that such a majority is in favour of themselves paying more tax; there's a natural tendency to support increases that fall on others, above all on the richest. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it was evident that the UK's tax base was too low. An ageing population, low levels of public and private investment, salaries in the public sector kept lower than in ...
Tue 6th
08:30
Whoniversaries 6 October: Adrienne Hill, City of Death #2, Age of Chaos, Day of the Clown #1
i) births and deaths 6 October 1997: death of Adrienne Hill, who played the short-lived Katarina, a companion of the First Doctor, in the last episode of The Myth Makers and the first few episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan in 1965. ii) broadcast and publication anniversaries 6 October 1979: broadcast of second episode of City of Death. 'What a wonderful butler! He's so violent! ... You're a very beautiful woman, probably.' Kerensky's time machine and the fake Mona Lisas. I must say this is a favourite episode of a favourite story. 6 October 1994: publication of The Age of ...
Tue 6th
07:55
Work underway to repair the Buttercross but no date yet for completion and partial reopening of King...
Ludlow Town Council last night received an update on repairs to the Buttercross. Councillors heard that repairs are underway but no date for completion is available. A lot depends on the weather and a skilled task like this will take time. Once the repairs are substantially complete, King Street can be reopened though the closure between 10am and 3pm on Fridays and Saturdays will remain in force until the experimental traffic regulation order is revoked. The damage King Street was closed from the end of June on Fridays and Saturdays to promote social distancing. This was extended to a full ...
The Government has been defeated on the Immigration Bill, including amendments from the Liberal Democrats to protect the rights of British nationals living in the EU and EU citizens in the UK.An amendment from Baroness Hamwee to preserve the right of UK nationals living in the EU to bring non-British family members with them if they return to the UK was passed yesterday afternoon.Another amendment passed last night, tabled by Liberal Democrat peer Jonny Oates, to force the Government to provide EU citizens in the UK who are granted Settled or Pre-Settled Status with physical proof of their migration status ...
As the saying goes, all things come to those who wait, and this particular update is a great example of that! Absolutely ages ago, at the request of residents, I asked the City Council's Private Sector Services Unit to contact the agents of the tenement block at 142 Perth Road that had been graffitied (at some considerable height). At the time, the problem for owners was access to the large area of graffiti but I am pleased to advise that, while the scaffold was up on the neighbouring block, one of the managing agents has arranged removal of the graffiti ...
