On holiday in Shropshire last summer, I picked up a secondhand copy of Joan Aiken's The Cuckoo Tree and was reminded how enjoyable her children's books are. The Cuckoo Tree was the fifth of the Wolves Chronicles. This film, made by Puffin Books to promote Aiken's work, talks about the genesis of the first four and also shows you Aiken's home. There's lots more about the writer and her books on The Wonderful World of Joan Aiken.
In March Erica and I hosted a group of care leavers and support staff on a tour of the Liverpool Town Hall as par of our 'This place is yours project'. As I approach the end of my year as Lord Mayor of Liverpool, I have been thinking about the key themes that I started with a year ago and wondering whether I have done well enough with delivering them. Perhaps that is for others to say but I have pursued he cause of care leavers to the best of my energy and passion. In September I hosted a conference ...
Embed from Getty ImagesThanks to a sharp-eyed Liberal England reader, the Guardian wins out Headline of the Day Award.
They are alive to the trap Lib Dems have walked into in the past of adopting a technocratic tone and blandly telling the public every issue is a "bit more complicated" than it seems. One senior figure says the Lib Dems are trying to do something quite unusual for a progressive centre-left party in making a broader emotional argument about why the public should pick them. This source says that approach runs through the stunts but also through the focus on care and the party leader's personal connection to the issue. Presenting a plan that looks different to the status ...
Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Find Out Now 20% (-1) 22% (nc) 14% (nc) 10% (-1) 28% (+2) -6% (vs Ref) 16/4 GB YouGov 21% (-1) 24% (nc) 14% ...
Following the horrendous and mortifyingly scary Supreme Court judgment on the Equality Act, after a couple of days to breathe, look after and protect our trans and non-binary friends and colleagues, we are starting to talk to various colleagues to start a plan to challenge this outrageous decision. This judgment has not only created more inconsistency, confusion, and downright removal of hard won trans rights but has landed several unintended consequences not only to the lives of trans men in particular, but actually to other key legislation where companies could with this judgment circumvent laws on equal pay for example. ...
Cometh the hour. Cometh the university. To be more specific, that bastion of American liberalism—Harvard. The defeated Democratic Party is worse than useless. The lawyers are frightened of threatened retribution. The media are curbing their criticisms in face of mounting law suits. The courts are hard at work, but they take time and the ultimate legal arbiter — the Supreme Court — has a decided conservative bent. However, Trump may have met his match in Harvard University. In America money talks. Harvard has money. A $53.2 billion endowment fund. This money is a shield against all the arrows — mainly ...
[IMG: Why I Care by Ed Davey] A new book by Ed Davey is out in May and you can pre-order it now from Waterstones, Amazon or Bookshop.org (which supports independent bookshops).* As the book's blurb says: Care is the thread that runs through Ed's life. Aged only four, Ed lost his father. When his mother also became ill with cancer, Ed and his brothers nursed her at home until she died when Ed was just 15. That formative experience was one of the main inspirations in seeking election, and with it the opportunity to take action. Now, he and ...
At the 2023 council budget, the SNP council administration forced through cuts to council-supported bus services which sadly meant that the 204 service across parts of the West End was axed along with other services including the sheltered housing shopping bus service. The service ended on 31st March 2024 and although the Liberal Democrat Group budget proposals this year would have restored the service, SNP councillors voted this down 15-5. Incredibly, more than a year on, the bus timetables at bus stops along the 204 route were still in place a few weeks ago for a non-existent bus service! See ...
There is no love lost in war or politics, and for some it seems that political principles shouldn't get in the way of whatever needs to be done to win either. The Guardian reports that a Green party council candidate is attempting to evict his Labour opponent from a house he owns using a no-fault notice, despite his party supporting a ban on exactly such kinds of eviction. The paper says that William Pedley, who is standing for the Greens in the Victoria ward of North Northamptonshire council, has served a section 21 notice on his tenant and political rival ...
