There was a time when I faithfully tracked each of Big Finish's Doctor Who releases as they came out, and reported them here. I fell out of the habit some time around 2014, and indeed stopped listening to Big Finish all that much until the lockdown really started to hit a year ago. Now there is far too much material to hope that I will ever catch up with it all, so I've been selecting particular characters to follow and made a new commitment to myself to write the stories up here as I get through them. My most recent ...
As Line of Duty' winds to an end today we can be sure that there is at least another series being planned in Liverpool's fight against corruption, waste and incompetence. By 19th May the Council has to prepare its response ... Continue reading →
Christine Jardine was on Any Questions on Friday night, answering questions about the Scottish elections, the PM's flat redecoration Here are some of her best bits; .@cajardineMP says that #CashForCurtains matters because we need to know where the money came from. The context is also relevant – lavish decoration when so many are struggling over Covid. #bbcaq — Caron Lindsay [IMG: 🔶] (@caronmlindsay) April 30, 2021 You can listen to the whole programme here. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Sun 2nd
13:57
Covid Watch 144: Despite outbreaks it is looking good as Shropshire approaches near zero Covid
Readers of this blog know I am never one to claim we have surmounted a hurdle before we have done so. But the Covid statistics for Shropshire, including south west Shropshire and Ludlow, remain very low. It is looking good. The outbreak of Covid-19 at the Crew Cake bakery in Bala has spilled over into Oswestry where some of the workers live. Health chiefs across the region are on the task and the outbreak is not expected to spread infection. Concerns over a variant in Telford have led to a surge in testing but the overall level of new cases ...
In an article in the Scotsman, Alistair Carmichael has pointed out the similarities between Scottish independence and Brexit. He said a hard border between Scotland and England would be inevitable: Just as it is uncontested that ursine mammals defecate in forested areas, it is not a matter of debate that, under SNP plans, an independent Scotland would have a hard border with the rest of the United Kingdom. He points out the harsh realties of independence: The reality is that if Scotland separates from the rest of the UK and cuts itself off from its "single market" then there will ...
This is the post I had mostly written last night before it was eaten by a glitch in the system. (Always save your drafts, folks.) The defenestration of Arlene Foster as leader of the DUP and First Minister of Northern Ireland was both overdue and unfair Overdue, because the real crisis of her leadership was only a year into it, with the renewable heating scandal of 2016-17. If she had done then as Peter Robinson did, and stepped back for a few weeks pending an investigation which would probably have given her enough of a figleaf to resume work with ...
America now has its mid-term election issue: President Biden's report to Congress. Not since FDR has the US been presented with such a left-wing agenda. Overnight, Joe Biden has been transformed from the one of the most boring to one of the most radical of presidents. He is no longer "sleepy Joe." But there are some practical political differences between JB and FDR's administrations which complicate Biden's plans. The main one is that President Biden has a slim majority in the House of Representatives, and only a one-seat majority in the Senate (when you count the casting vote of Vice ...
Sat, 12:56: RT @DecLawn: The future of the union lies in a cohort of "persuadables" in NI. Most polls suggest they are socially liberal, open-mined, no... Sat, 14:48: Anton Jäger, Rebel Regions, NLR 128, March-April 2021 https://t.co/tzTrxN7soy Very interesting left-wing comparison of UK and Belgium, or rather Northern England and Wallonia. Sat, 22:52: 410 days of plague https://t.co/WSkdA5v3jN Sun, 09:30: Whoniversaries 2 May https://t.co/MxM8UKC0R8
When it was decided in 1911 to start paying MPs, it was done partly to keep the Labour Party onboard as part of a left-leaning Liberal government, but also to ensure that ordinary men and women could take up positions in Parliament. There is an interesting history of payment for MPs here, including the fact that MPs had been paid in medieval and Tudor times with Dunwich in 1463 paying one of its MPs in herrings. The blog says that serving in Parliament was perceived as an inconvenience needing recompense, but as the prestige of being an MP grew, so ...
My main present for Christmas 1973 was a cassette recorder and I was soon busy taping music off the radio. I remember recording the year's top 60 singles, stopping the tape every time Peters and Lee put in an appearance. And I remember taping a snatch of this record from a trailer for a Radio One programme. Looking at BBC Genome, it must have been for the edition of Sounds on Sunday broadcast on 6 January 1974. I had no idea what the song was or who the singer was, but I thought it was wonderful. Whispering Grass was made ...
i) births and deaths 2 May 1941: birth of Paul Darrow, who played Captain Hawkins in Doctor Who and the Silurians (Third Doctor, 1970) and Tekker in Timelash (Sixth Doctor, 1985). And Avon, of course. ii) broadcast, publishing and webcast anniversaries 2 May 1964: broadcast of "The Snows of Terror", fourth episode of the story we now call The Keys of Marinus. Ian, Barbara and Susan retrieve the Key despite the efforts of Vasor and the Ice Soldiers. Then Ian finds the last key at their last destination. 2 May 1970: broadcast of seventh episode of The Ambassadors of Death. ...
Responding to the closure of FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Devlopment Office) and funded UK Partnerships for Health Systems programme, due to aid cuts, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs and International Development Spokesperson Layla Moran MP said: "I'm appalled that the Government has cancelled the UK Partnerships for Health Systems programme. I cannot believe that during a global pandemic the Conservatives are taking money away from the very programmes that are designed to build resilient health systems in developing countries. "This is both unforgivable and incredibly short-sighted. The Government are sowing the seeds of the next pandemic with these cuts. Nobody is ...
Rafael Behr says there is only one thing certain in the court of King Boris: it will all end badly: "Johnson is driven by a restless sense of his own entitlement to be at the apex of power and a conviction, supported by evidence gathered on his journey to the top, that rules are a trap to catch weaker men and honour is a plastic trophy that losers award themselves in consolation for unfulfilled ambition." "The unreadable in pursuit of the unelectable" Mic Wright deconstructs my old classmate Allison Pearson's interview with Laurence Fox. Ian Sanjay Patel is interviewed about ...
