There was a strong line-up to be elected the new Chair of the European Movement, Britain's main pro-European campaigning body. True, they were all white males of a certain age but between them Dominic Grieve, Andrew Adonis and Peter Kellner had a wealth of different experience. Brexit may have happened, alas, but it is more [...]
One of the great successes of the Campaign for Gender Balance has been its (still ongoing) series of Future Women MPs weekends. I know that Layla, Christine, Daisy and Wendy at least – and I think others – all went on one. Some even went to the same one. The Racial Diversity Campaign is adopting the same model and is having an Ethnic Minority Future MPs Weekend next Saturday and Sunday and there are still places available. From an email sent round today: The Lib Dem Racial Diversity Campaign would like to invite you to apply to the Ethnic Minority ...
Second frame (more or less) of third story in original and translation - you must read the text from right to left, of course. Both sentences are spoken by Sui's genius father. This was one of the works of 20th-century sf set in the year 2021 that I listed a while back, but it took me a while to get hold of the English translation of the first volume. This is manga written for a teenage girls' magazine, which is not a sub-genre that I am at all familiar with; Vermillion the robot is being taught how to be human ...
As the Government continues to bludgeon its way through what is still a pandemic crisis, they have made many mistakes along the way. Promises about a world beating track and trace to be delivered by a wonderful private sector turned ... Continue reading →
Top-notch fundraising idea from Liberal Democrat campaigner and owner of extremely cute dog, Rob Blackie. First, the context: I now can't go to any online meeting without colleagues demanding to see Coco. pic.twitter.com/DQHLOOm9I9 — Rob Blackie [IMG: 🔶] (@robblackie) March 4, 2021
Given the progress of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, combined with my somewhat advanced age, it has been becoming increasingly likely that the moment where I received an invitation to be jabbed would soon be nigh. To be honest, it's not something I had given a great deal of thought to - I had blithely assumed that I would get an invite, book myself in, get jabbed and that would be it. I am not, as many of my friends will acknowledge, one of the most contemplative people out there, more a day to day, dealing with the problems in front ...
Welsh Liberal Democrats have been holding their Conference this weekend, also online. In her leader's speech, Jane Dodds talked about making Wales the green economic power house of a reformed UK, of the need for greater mental health support and investment in housing and tackling poverty with a Universal Basic Income trial. She talked of the importance of both people and planet to Wales' recovery. Watch it here: The text is below: Prynhawn Da Cynhadledd/Croeso Gynnes i chi gyd. These have been hard times for us all. Personally, professionally, politically. We have all needed to dig deep to find extra ...
Sun 7th
14:06
Rural bus companies call on Shropshire Council cabinet to retain Shrewsbury Bus Station in new plans
Plans for Shrewsbury town centre are up for discussion tomorrow, 8 March at Shropshire Council's cabinet meeting. Shropshire Council wants to sell the bus station and the bus layover car park as housing land. There is vague talk in the Big Town Plan (BTP) about another location for a bus station but no location is proposed. Rural bus companies have now written to Shropshire Council saying that current plans to end inter-urban and rural buses at the park and ride sites, with a transfer onto local buses for the journey into the town centre, is not feasible. The plan will ...
We have stood on the streets and applauded our front line NHS staff. We have wondered at their resilience in the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes. We have sympathised with them when they have fallen ill and with their families when they have died. The reward health service workers will get for their efforts is a measly 1% pay rise. Ministers seem not to recognise that those who have worked themselves into exhaustion, taken on extra shifts, faced danger every working day need a boost. With tax allowances frozen, the lowest paid staff and frontline nurses should at least ...
We have stood on the streets and applauded our front line NHS staff. We have wondered at their resilience in the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes. We have sympathised with them when they have fallen ill and with their families when they have died. The reward health service workers will get for their efforts is a measly 1% pay rise. Ministers seem not to recognise that those who have worked themselves into exhaustion, taken on extra shifts, faced danger every working day need a boost. With tax allowances frozen, the lowest paid staff and frontline nurses should at least ...
I've been of the view for some time that this is a lucky, rather than competent, government. Which, if you're an opponent of it, is a part blessing - what would be it be like if they were competent as well? Evidence of that comes after what was a pretty decent budget in presentation terms (I hold back from any suggestion that it was a good budget in economic or political terms at this stage), in that a 1% pay rise for NHS workers has gone down so badly both with the staff concerned - not unreasonably - but with ...
As somebody who does everything I can to sort my garbage at source in the interests of the environment, I was interested to see this article in the Observer, where they allege that an investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches into where our rubbish goes, and the role played by energy-from-waste incineration plants, has found that millions of tonnes of our carefully sorted empties are simply being burned after they're collected. They say that freedom of information requests reveal that, on average, 11% of rubbish collected for recycling is incinerated. In some areas the figures are far higher: 45% in Southend-on-Sea ...
Sat, 12:53: RT @David_Kitchen_: The Power of Three is shallow and feckless, but Mindwarp is nasty. So Power of Three it is! Sat, 12:56: RT @ClaireRousseau: I've no idea of the context being QTd below, but that LeGuin piece on non-SFF audiences assuming they can reinvent the... Sat, 13:47: RT @scraphamster: Calling it 'The Trolley Problem' is such a neat way to jettison human responsibility onto the inanimate object. We should... Sat, 16:08: Driving Miss Daisy https://t.co/ubO5QcUJKC Sat, 23:55: RT @AstroKatie: This lander lasted almost an hour before succumbing to temperatures like the inside of an oven and pressures like ...
Ed Davey spoke to Scottish Lib Dem Conference on Friday. Here is his speech in full: One of the things that gives me great hope for our Party is seeing so many brilliant rising stars like Joe. In the year of COP26, Glasgow will be in the global spotlight, and I hope that talented young activists like Joe can be at the forefront of making liberal voices heard. In the crucial debate of our generation – the climate. I had hoped that by now the Government would be on top of this pandemic. That I would be speaking in person ...
I'm returning to the railway photos of former Maghull resident and British Rail employee Neil Reston. The 3 photo's in this posting were all taken from the same spot where Poverty Lane Maghull crosses over the what is now the Ormskirk Line of Merseyrail but until the late 1960's was a main line north to Scotland from Liverpool Exchange Station. All 3 photos are of northbound trains with the lead photo being noted as a Glasgow train. They were all taken in 1968 which is right at the end of through trains using the line from for former Liverpool Exchange ...
Can it really be 30 years - half a lifetime - since REM became for a while the world's most popular band? Near Wild Heaven, a minor hit in the UK, is to be found on the band's 1991 album Out of Time. All Music pronounces it: a rare hit of sunshine pop smack in the middle of one of R.E.M.'s darker albums, and unlike the thematically similar "Shiny Happy People," [Mike] Mills' wide-eyed declarations of love manage to sound uplifting without being smarmy.
Just a bit of an update on Lydiate Parish Council's project to develop and upgrade the football changing facilities at its Sandy Lane Playing Field. Here's the latest photos:- This is where the additional changing facility will be located. It will come as a pre-built modular container-type building for which the services are being provided via these works. My understanding is that delivery will be around 18th May. Works inside the present building are also progressing to raise the 1960's-type standards and provide refreshment facilities too. Here's a photo which I may have previously posted with regard to these works. ...
In this weekend's look at world politics our foreign correspondent Tom Arms looks at political events in the UK, Boris Johnson cutting aid to Yemen, politics in the EU shifting to the left, a bad week for ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and ASEAN foreign ministers pushing for the release of Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the return to democracy in Myanmar. Interesting week in the UK. The budget, Scottish shenanigans and the Northern Ireland protocol will all have international repercussions. British Chancellor Rishi Sunak is the first finance minister to lay down the foundations of a financial road ...
i) births and deaths 7 March 1930: birth of Brian Hayles, writer of The Celestial Toymaker (First Doctor, 1966), The Smugglers (First Doctor, 1966), The Ice Warriors (Second Doctor, 1968), The Seeds of Death (Second Doctor, 1969), The Curse of Peladon (Third Doctor, 1971) and The Monster of Peladon (Third Doctor, 1974). 7 March 1934: birth of of Gordon Flemyng, director of Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966) ii) broadcast and production anniversaries 7 March 1964: broadcast of "Five Hundred Eyes", third episode of the story we now call Marco Polo. Ping-Cho ...
From the City Council : "Please be aware that Riverside household waste recycling centre will be shut on Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th March for re-surfacing works to take place." Other recycling facilities elsewhere are unaffected and a full list is available here.
Two good news stories this weekend. Infection rates in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and across England have fallen rapidly. There were seven cases in Ludlow in the seven days to 28 February, down for a peak of 30 cases a week a few weeks before. Vaccination rates are increasing with 95% of Ludlow residents over 65 years of age now vaccinated. Restrictions haven't been lifted and our behaviour can't change but we are at last looking towards the end of rules that have kept some people largely confined to their homes for a year. More than 21 million first doses ...
