Today saw only the fourth Saturday sitting of the House of Commons that I can remember. The first was in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falklands. I remember listening as we stripped the walls in my bedroom. The second was in 2019 when I, along with hundreds of thousands of others was on a People's Vote march outside. The atmosphere that day was very muted. We kind of knew we were on our way out of the EU despite the drama inside. The third was when the late Queen died in 2022. Today, the Government was awarded some pretty sweeping ...
Two further thoughts. It's only a week since two Labour MPs were barred from entering Israel. Once authoritarian governments see other governments getting away with this behaviour, they are likely to try it themselves. It just shows how wrong Kemi Badenoch was to support the Israeli government: soon it will be a Conservative MP who is affected. In 2020 Ryan Coetzee, mastermind of the Liberal Democrats' 2015 general election campaign and the Remain effort in the EU referendum, was given a £5m budget to promote the Hong Kong government as part of his work for a PR firm.
I remember the anticipation of going to meet my first niece when she was born during Lib Dem conference at Harrogate. At least I only had a 4 hour train ride in the same country to take to meet this beautiful new person. And nobody to stand in the way of me meeting her. I can only imagine how our Wera Hobhouse must be feeling. She and her husband William went to Hong Kong on Thursday to meet their baby grandson for the first time and the Chinese authorities simply would not let her in. Even more cruelly they decided ...
I made my connection in Rome easily enough, and had a little time to explore Roma Termini station - not exactly pretty on the outside but an excellent shopping mall inside. But my next destination was Italy's heel. Trenitalia's crack trains only run as far as Lecce, which is also the limit for Interrailers (the local rail services are run by a regional affiliate which doesn't accept Interrail passes). I arrived to find warm(ish) sunshine and a city centre which is full of small, narrow streets providing welcome shade for most of the day. And, once I'd found my hotel, ...
Sat 12th
14:56
Most councillors work hard for their community and are dedicated to the concept of service.
[IMG: Today I argue that the common conception of councillors is wrong and that most of us try and do our best for the communities that we serve.] Over the 42 years that I have served as a councillor, I have met literally tens of thousands of people who are councillors in Liverpool, the rest of the UK and the rest of the world. On many occasions I have engaged in quite fierce debates in my own council chamber in Liverpool in which we passionately argued our differences but those differences, especially as we have no right-wing councillors in Liverpool ...
Sky News reports Lib Dem Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper securing an important assurance from the government during the Parliamentary debate on emergency legislation to secure the future of the Scunthorpe steel works. After welcoming action to save the steel works, she went on to query the very broad powers the emergency legislation gives the government: [Daisy Cooper] says the Labour government is "trying to give itself unprecedented powers" in order to save British Steel. The powers are "huge and unconstrained" that she argues "could set a very dangerous precedent". "I urge the secretary of state in the strongest possible terms ...
With the end of another, rather interesting, quarter, another update to PollBase, my database of British voting intention opinion polls since 1943 is now up. Download the new version here. Changes this time include: Data from the 1930s: Gallup data on satisfaction with the Prime Minister from 1938 onwards added as well as some limited voting intention data. More to come. Additional ORC data from the 1970 and February 1974 Parliaments. Additional Harris data from the February 1974 Parliament. Corrections to some NOP data from the 1955 Parliament. Additional NOP data from the 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970 and February 1974 ...
How long ago this now seems! I'm not saying that Jennie engineered an international financial crisis to get herself out of the headlines, just that it has been mightily convenient for her. Saturday How sad that an innocent act by Jennie, quite the most sensible member of the new Liberal Democrat intake in my experience, has been blown up out of all proportion! There can be few MPs who have not crossed the floor at one time or another to have their tummy rubbed. I know I did. The whole affair has placed a hefty spoke in the wheel of ...
Trump has declared war on China. It's a trade war, not a shooting war. But the fallout will still be devastating and it will reach every corner of the globe. The markets rallied on the news that Trump had blinked. He had reduced everyone's tariffs to a blanket 10 percent—plus 25 percent for cars, aluminium and steel—except China. Then tariffs on Chinese goods went up. China retaliated. They went up again. As of this writing tariffs on China stand at 145 percent. And Chinese tariffs on US goods are at 84 percent. That effectively means that the world's two biggest ...
So, Trieste Centrale on a sunny evening in April, the world your oyster. But not the obvious option for a footloose bureaucrat. No, I had some serious miles to cover, and the overnight sleeper to Rome to catch. Now, compared to the Nightjet, Austrian Railway's rather elegant sleeper service to Rome from Vienna, Trenitalia's Intercity Notte service is a mite basic. None of this "en suite bathroom and shower" nonsense but, given the price difference, I was willing to make the sacrifice. I found my berth easily enough, despite Trenitalia's attempts to bewilder (and why not number the carriages 1, ...
The 2002 contest for Mayor of Newark generated an Oscar-nominated documentary. Street Fight is still a great watch, particularly as the winner, Corby Booker, is still very much in the political stage: The story in the film ends in 2005 and, without giving away any spoilers, it is afterwards well worth reading up on what happened next (which you can find easily online). Three other election documentaries to enjoy if you like this one: An African Election about the 2008 Ghana Presidential election. The War Room about the 1992 US Presidential election. A Lib Dem produced video for sister liberal ...
Stagecoach recently advised in its website : "Due to road conditions at Sinderins, Dundee, services 77A and 74C will be temporarily diverted from Monday 24th March until further notice. Services will be required to divert by continuing along the Perth Road to Hyndford Street, turn right up Hyndford Street to Blackness Avenue, then turning right onto Blackness Avenue and following this onto the Perth Road to then resume normal route." In our view and the view of residents, the use of narrow and residential Hyndford Street is completely inappropriate. As one resident told us : "I am writing to express ...
The Western Mail reports that MPs will be called back to Parliament tomorrow for an extremely "rare" Saturday sitting as the government tries to pass emergency legislation to save a British Steel plant, action that for some reason was not available to save the plant in Port Talbot. The paper quotes the Prime Minister as stating that the future of the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe "hangs in the balance", as he vowed that the government will "keep all options on the table" amid calls for nationalisation. However, they add that Plaid Cymru has questioned why the government did not ...
