The Harrogate Advertiser reports that Tyler Reeton has joined the Liberal Democrats in Harrogate: A former Labour candidate who would have become North Yorkshire County Council's youngest councillor if elected has quit the party to join the Liberal Democrats... In a statement posted on Twitter, he said: "This hasn't been an easy decision for me to make because I have been a Labour Party member since 2015 and I joined the party when I was just 14-years-old... "I have had time to reconsider my values and principles in politics and I have decided that the Liberal Democrats and their passion ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

This week, the US State Department issued an advisory note to US companies operating in Hong Kong highlighting risks that emerge from the implementation of the Chinese government's National Security Law. US Secretary of State, Anthony J Blinken, has highlighted the "...persistent and politically motivated campaign against the free press, imprisoned Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai, and forced the closure of that publication - a bastion of independent reporting. Beijing has chipped away at Hong Kong's reputation of accountable, transparent governance and respect for individual freedoms, and has broken its promise to leave Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy unchanged ...

Posted by Roger Crouch on Liberal Democrat Voice

My last update was a bit pessimistic, as COVID case numbers started to surge again in Belgium. But actually it now looks not too bad. Cases today are at 1330 (well, that's the daily average for 10-16 July), compared to 697 ten days ago and 328 twenty days ago. But hospital numbers are only at 265, up a bit from 240 ten days ago and down rather more from 329 twenty days ago. So it looks rather like the extensive vaccination campaign (68% of the entire population has had one jab, 49% have had both) means that those who are ...

At around 19:05 hrs on Wednesday 26 February 2020, a passenger train struck and fatally injured a person who had just fallen from platform 1 of Eden Park station. The person, who had impaired vision, moved near to, and fell from, the platform edge probably because his visual impairment meant he was unaware that he was close to this edge. The platform edge was not fitted with markings intended to assist visually impaired people. The above words are not my own, or some emotive media report of a horrific fatality, but the words from the investigation report carried out by ...

Posted by Caroline Pidgeon on Liberal Democrat Voice
Tue 20th
12:37

Forty words

Earlier this year the Social Liberal Forum Council discussed what should be its priorities. Along with the nature of work, welfare and how citizens participate in their communities there was a hunger for a vision, an underlying narrative, something that goes beyond individual, evidence-based policies about specific issues, something you might call liberal ideology. It is pretty clear that many people in the country don't know what Liberal Democrats stand for. We hear on the doorsteps, "We like you but we're not sure what you're about". SLF has set up a year-long project to answer this need, to produce a ...

Posted by David Grace on Liberal Democrat Voice

Am I the only one who thinks that the approach to reopening night clubs being taken by the UK Government is ridiculous? Ministers reopened night clubs as of midnight yesterday and immediately we are treated to footage of hundreds of young people dancing in close proximity to each other, no doubt spreading the delta variant of Covid 19 far and wide. So far, so experimental. Within 24 hours the Prime Minister announced that new requirements will come in from the end of September, ten weeks after the clubs were reopened. As the Independent reports, Johnson plans to make full vaccination ...

Posted by Peter Black on Peter Black
Tue 20th
11:00

My tweets

Mon, 12:29: RT @ireneista: amazing. we love it. https://t.co/cwwdamsA92 Mon, 13:31: Wow. Defeated by The Twin Dilemma????? https://t.co/dEIsAzr7y6 Mon, 14:11: Cyrillic fail. (If you have even basic Russian, keep staring at that last line until it makes sense. Ow!) https://t.co/ain9ulo9YU Mon, 16:57: The blog that launched a thousand sh*ts https://t.co/FoNjUWfWeV Mon, 20:48: If you voted for Brexit, or for the Tories, I hope you are proud of achievements like this. https://t.co/6xdRT1deSx Tue, 10:45: Unionism is running out of both political and demographic road https://t.co/VFR6SoN7je Wise words. Tue, 10:59: In Landen with Gino Debroux, the mayor, and his counterpart from Limerick, ...

Welcome news reported by LabourList: New polling shows 83% of Labour members believe the party should support changing the UK's electoral system to proportional representation, up from 76% less than two years ago, LabourList can exclusively reveal. According to a poll of nearly 1,000 Labour members, conducted by YouGov for Labour for a New Democracy, only 10% say their party should not support the switch from first-past-the-post to a form of proportional representation (PR). The latest findings show record levels of support within Labour for the policy of electoral reform, which would change how general elections are run in the ...

Posted by Mark Pack on Mark Pack

The council's cabinet will tomorrow (Wednesday) discuss a proposal to install advertisements roundabouts, boundary signs, lampposts and verges. This commercialisation of public space is predicted to generate £392,000 for the council over four years. The plans will also clutter the county with around 270 roadside signs, with the possibility of others to follow on bus shelters, bridges, central reservations, barriers, waste bins and street furniture, hanging baskets and flower beds, customer vehicles, customer buildings, car parks, statues and so the list goes on. In the first phase, commercial advertising signs will appear on roundabouts, boundary signs and verges. In the ...

Posted by andybodders on Andy Boddington

I have just seen a report on LabourList about the report which is being presented to Labour's National Executive. It makes absolutely clear why the City Council has fallen into such terrible straits with its controlling group riven by misogyny, ... Continue reading →

Posted by richardkemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?
YouGov

Eid Mubarak everyone. Muslims will be celebrating another Eid with certain restrictions still continuing in places of worship. But it's wonderful to see that many worshippers are returning to pray at their local mosques. This is why I invited Ed Davey to witness the hundreds praying outside in the court yard of Regents Park Mosque on the last Jumma (Arabic for Friday prayer) before Eid Al Adha. It was a touching moment for me as I have many beautiful memories of coming to the mosque, praying in the gardens at night during Ramadan and playing with friends in between Arabic ...

Posted by Hina Bokhari on Liberal Democrat Voice

Many thanks to the residents who recently highlighted to me the significant damage to the community noticeboard at the Mitchell Street Centre - situated at the junction of Lochee Road and Mitchell Street. I raised this with the City Council and have since had the following helpful feedback : "I can confirm that an order was processed for our blacksmith and joiner to carry out required repairs."

Gwyn Topham, the Guardian's transport correspondent, writes: Britain's bus services outside London were so damaged by privatisation that people were unable to access basic needs such as work, education and healthcare, according to a scathing report by the former UN special rapporteur on human rights. Many people in Britain had lost jobs and benefits, been forced to give up on education, or been cut off from communities and healthcare as bus services grew more expensive, unreliable, and dysfunctional after the 1985 reform, the inquiry found. The report, Public Transport, Private Profit: The human cost of privatizing buses in the United ...

Posted by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England